Drifter
by Zanka no Tachi 31
Summary: Ichigo has gone the past seventeen months without any power to help protect those around him. An offer is made to him that he accepts and he gains the power needed to protect his friends and family again. He just doesn't know that the woman playing twenty questions with him is about to send him to a waste land with incomplete training from Xcution. Good Ginjou not evil
1. We can give you back your power

This week had to be the strangest of weeks Ichigo had had in seventeen months. First he is invited to join Xcution to become a fullbringer.

* * *

FLASH BACK

"Why do you want to give me the ability to fight hollows again?" Ichigo asked the man in front of him named Kugo Ginjou, whom was sitting across from him on a lounge a content look on his face after showing him the power of fullbring.

"I didn't say only hollows, but so you can protect again, is that not what you do? We, here at Xcution thought that since no one has actually tried to thank you for all you did to save the world of the living and dead," Ginjou said causing Ichigo's eyes to widen at knowing that the man in front of him knew about the winter war "that we would give you the power to fight again. Normally you can't just say to someone 'hey we're gonna teach you fullbring 'cause we want to'. No it doesn't work like that, you have to be thankful for the fact that the left over reiatsu has finished converging in your body and that you once had the powers of a hollow. The hollow reiatsu is a key part of fullbring, I'll explain why later, but so is being alive, only humans can gain this power, and if gained while alive it can greatly increase ones capability as a hollow or shinigami when they die."

"So you're saying that I can get a power like Inoue's or Chad's, and that it's possible for me to regain my shinigami powers through this power?" Ichigo said eyeing the man in front of him cautious, even if he was brought to the man by Chad, one of his best friends.

"Yes you can get a power like theirs, a fullbring, but it will be drastically different, just like almost no two zanpakuto are alike, you may find similarities but in conclusion they are different. You may or may not regain your shinigami powers while still alive, it is highly unlikely, as it is a power of the dead, but considering your heritage it's not impossible, the fullbring will just make sure that your damaged soul will be able to wield a zanpakuto again when you die by mending your soul chain and soul sleep. You see when you used that powerful move of yours to defeat the madman, you overloaded your reiatsu capacity and damaged both severely, it's a miracle you're still alive among the living or dead, you should have died moments after that. Fullbring is the key to building yourself up once more; it will also increase your lifespan as a human and slow down the aging process of your body due to the natural characteristics of hollows to simply not age at all. If you decide to join our Xcution, it is customary rules to state your fullbring abilities to the other members so that if needing to fight as a team in a time of need it will be a lot easier." Ginjou explained answering Ichigo's question as well as answering ones that were sure to pop up sooner or later, they always did.

Ichigo looked to be in deep thought for a moment with his head bowed down looking at his feet. Ichigo raised his head after a few minutes of thinking, weighing the odds. "Alright I'll join, when do we begin training?" Ichigo said, newfound confidence and determination showing in his eyes.

"Woah, woah, hold your horses" Ginjou said waving his hands in front of him while smiling at the fact of the possibility of gaining a new member for Xcution. "We haven't all introduced ourselves yet, if your going to join you should at least know everyone here," Ginjou said.

_"He has a point"_ Ichigo thought looking around at the few faces that were in the room _"I don't even know who the people are that are trying to help me."_ "Ah, sorry, hi I'm Ichigo Kurosaki" Ichigo said to the rest of the people in the room receiving several replies.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Giriko Kutsuzawa" a man looking to be in his forties said. He was dressed in a tailored suit behind the bar with an eye patch over his right eye.

"Yukio Hans Vorarlberna," a young looking boy said not looking up from the game console in his hand. He wore clothing that closely resembled that of someone who was wealthy although nearly all his clothing was black.

"Jackie Tristan" a dark skinned woman said sitting on another lounge in the large room. She wore simple civilian clothing except for her boots, which seemed to stand out a little against her clothing.

"Shūkurō Tsukishima" a pale skinned man said from the far corner of the room. He wore a white shirt and slacks. He seemed mildly interested in the book that he held closing it shut as he looked up to get a better view of the person he was introducing himself to.

"Well then," Ginjou said " the last member is Riruka Dokugamine, she should be here soon…oh here she is now" Ginjou said confusing Ichigo as he had yet to see the person enter the room until he heard the sound of the door at the front of the room open and a light skinned rather young woman entered through the door carrying a dollhouse.

"Well where is he?" Riruka spoke rudely "I can't see him, turn the lights up and get some more in…hey Ginjou is that your sword glowing over there, geez you're gonna have to pay for the tiles to get fixed" she said causing a look of turmoil and regret to show on Ginjou's face.

"Oh crap…I didn't think about that" Ginjou said retracting his sword, leaving a cross like pendant dangling on his necklace and a gaping hole in the tiles where his sword once stood. "Well then now that's over with lets get on with the beginning of your training, although fair warning, this training is not like your old training where you can continuously push yourself to your limits, you will be able to eventually but not for this first training session, maybe the next. We need to kick start the healing process and your body won't be ready to be wielding this power again quiet so soon, initiating the first stage of fullbring should be enough for today"

Soon after that Ichigo was given a quick rundown of Riruka's abilities with her fullbring she named dollhouse. Ichigo soon understood what she meant after she permitted him to enter and he was sucked into the dollhouse to be faced with a giant possessed pig plushy toy. It was so goddamn annoying and Ichigo had to fight that thing, it was at least three times his own size.

For the next twenty minutes Ichigo continued to run away from the thing trying to figure out how to initiate his own fullbring. Although when he hit the fifteen-minute mark that thing that was chasing him got even uglier if it was possible in Ichigo's opinion, it was already ugly. However this caused Ichigo to get the push he needed as well as some help thanks to Chad telling him that he needed to remember his pride as a shinigami. This caused a massive burst of black and red reiryoku from the substitute badge Ichigo was holding forming a tsuba like cross, similar to the one that was on Tensa Zangetsu.

Ichigo jumped out of the area he was hiding in and threw his badge at the mutated pig monster plushy hoping that this was the way that his fullbring worked only to be surprised when the badge stopped emitting reiastu and tapped the pig on the face, harmlessly falling to the ground.

"Crap, that's not the way to use it, and it can't cut I already tried that" Ichigo said to himself remembering when he touched the cardboard walls with it and that rather than cutting it was slightly dented instead.

Ichigo ran through the legs of the pig and picked up his badge causing it to once again emit the black and red tsuba. The pig turned around and charged at Ichigo who held up his tsuba hoping that it would act like a real guard should and protect him as the pigs fist came down upon him. Ichigo was confident once again when the tsuba had in fact actually blocked the attack and lightened the load of the force the pig put behind it so rather instead of crushing him it only sent him skidding back a few feet.

_"The reiatsu…it's like the reiatsu in my bankai and a getsuga, maybe if I can release it…"_ Ichigo thought to himself prepping his right arm backwards and swinging forwards willing an attack to fly out of the tsuba and was gifted with a spinning tsuba that flew off right into the pigs face defeating it in one shot.

"Well Ichigo," Ginjou said once Ichigo had been released from the dollhouse "we'll call you when your soul has adjusted to using this power, it should only be about three or four days a week maximum, until then just continue on about life as usual," Ginjou said. "I don't expect you to trust us straight away, and you've been hearing those voices in the substitute badge haven't you, the soul society will start to monitor you again if they catch wind of all the changes that are happening to the badge, pas it here I'll remove the kidou, all it requires is pulling it off with bringer light. It only works with weak kidou so don't expect it to work for everything" Ginjou said receiving the badge from Ichigo and proceeding in removing the remaining kidou spells that were on the badge weakened by time.

Ichigo had had enough of the soul society monitoring him. He had known about it from the very beginning, from the instant Ukitake had handed him the badge, the way he worded himself to Ichigo gave that very fact away. He was all right with it at that point in time but now that he had no shinigami powers to speak of, he was annoyed that they thought they needed to know about his every detail in life, he wanted to get rid of it.

Receiving the badge back from Ginjou Ichigo went about his business and left the apartment block but not after receiving an official Xcution card from Ginjou who pulled one out of his jacket and handed it to Ichigo.

* * *

(A few days later)

Next he found a red calling card by a payphone a couple of days later and played twenty questions with a woman on the other end who seemed adamant in playing the phone machine voice that asked the questions to him while he answered by pressing one or two as the answer for the yes or no question. What the hell kind of question is have you ever bled blue blood? Well anyway, by the time Ichigo hit question sixty it started spouting knowledge about his life. Something was wrong, very wrong.

"Who are you?" Ichigo asked "That kind of info you were just spouting is under lock and key, no one knows about my life and death fights but me, a few of my friends and a shopkeeper"

"Does it really matter?" the woman answered back "I'm giving you a chance for another adventure and to give you power to replace the power you lost"

_"So she doesn't know about my fullbring training then huh"_ Ichigo thought. "It does matter to me, because I'd rather live a private life that no one interferes in any longer, example spying on me, have you been following or watching me?" Ichigo said looking around for anyone nearby but could find none.

"No" the woman replied, "you merely interest me Ichigo Kurosaki, question sixty-three, do you want to go to psyren? Yes or no"

_"I might find some answers if I say yes and I'm pretty sure I can handle whatever is thrown at me, although…I haven't come anywhere near my fullbring completion"_ Ichigo thought finally coming up with an answer.

"Well, what is it? It's a simple yes or no question" the woman said after waiting for a moment getting tired of waiting.

Ichigo pushed a button, "Yes"


	2. Where the hell am I?

Thanks to those of you who reviewed this story. I too was disappointed when the first Bleach/Psyren crossover was canceled. It actually peaked my interest so I read the manga and found it quiet interesting. It inspired me to come up with my own idea for a Bleach/Psyren crossover. It's a shame there aren't anymore crossovers with Psyren, I think they'd mix really well if you found a way to combine the two manga or just did a simple Psyren fic.

That's enough for now. Let the next chapter continue...

* * *

(Previously)

"No" the woman replied, "you merely interest me Ichigo Kurosaki, question sixty-three, do you want to go to psyren? Yes or no"

_"I might find some answers if I say yes and I'm pretty sure I can handle whatever is thrown at me, although…I haven't come anywhere near my fullbring completion"_ Ichigo thought finally coming up with an answer.

"Well, what is it? It's a simple yes or no question" the woman said after waiting for a moment getting tired of waiting.

Ichigo pushed a button, "Yes"

* * *

(Present)

Ichigo Kurosaki…past time substitute shinigami, hero of the winter war, was now stuck...in the middle of nowhere.

"Where the hell am I?" Ichigo shouted taking in his surroundings. There were collapsed buildings, destroyed homes, a darkened sky covered by a dark murky substance that blocked out nearly all the rays of light that were to shine upon the earth. Only a dim light lit the surrounding land, as though it were constantly the end of a long day and the sun's brightness was disappearing over the horizon.

Ichigo checked his phone and realized that it was in fact late in the afternoon when he had made the phone call and was now five in the afternoon and that he definitely wasn't going to make it back home before at least tomorrow, that was if he found a way to leave the place he currently found himself in.

"Jeez, and I was supposed to go back tomorrow and finish my training" Ichigo said to himself finally calming down and regaining his composure. Ichigo tucked his phone back into the pocket of his white jacket and pulled out his substitute badge to feel safer in the environment he was experiencing, knowing that usually when thrown into a wasteland there was bound to be trouble ahead courtesy of experience in a certain white sand filled desert. "The atmosphere here is sure fucked up…urrgghh, I got a killer headache too now, just great"

* * *

A few minutes later of searching around the abandoned and destroyed city Ichigo could here the sounds of creatures lurking through the lands nearby and decided to take a look. Scrambling up the dusty slope of a shattered windowpane Ichigo could see a flying creature sniffing the air trying to tell what was nearby. As Ichigo took a closer look he could see a red orb in it's abdomen that seemed to glow as it hovered about landing in random locations as though on patrol.

"A weak spot, only more obvious than a hollow mask" Ichigo said to himself slowly falling back down the ledge to think. _"Maybe I should attack it…more experience with my fullbring, what the hell, here I go,"_ Ichigo thought finally making up his decision standing up.

Jumping over the edge Ichigo approached the thing at a walking pace hands in his pockets confident that the small creature might not give much of a challenge. The creature turned to face him when he got closer and immediately stopped assessing the surroundings and charged at high speeds surprising Ichigo. Ichigo brought out his substitute badge and activated his incomplete fullbring and sent a spiraling tsuba of reiatsu at the creature hoping to catch it off guard from the sudden attack.

The creature paused for a moment unable to discern what the attack Ichigo sent flying at it was and was hit front on by the attack only causing it to budge a few centimetres to the left after getting hit in it's right side.

Ichigo looked at the creature for a moment as it began to look over him once again and blinked. "Ah shit" Ichigo said as the creature began to chase after him once again. Ichigo turned and began to run within the small open area they were within trying to figure out how he could defeat the creature. "It feels like a getsuga, but it's power is nowhere near the same" Ichigo said to himself ducking under the creatures attempt to swoop down upon him. Ichigo spun around and fired off tsuba once more but the creature just simply plowed through the attack and shattered it not phased at all by the low amount of power behind the attack. "It's just like that giant pig all over again," Ichigo said to himself frustrated. "Only this time it's got a lot more durability." _"…Wait, like a getsuga…I'm not charging it like how I would a normal getsuga, if I charged it for just a bit longer…there"_ Ichigo thought as he continued to run and hold the badge in front of himself focusing on charging the reiatsu inside the badge. Suddenly six prongs were emitted instead of just four and Ichigo turned to attack once more. "Haa…" Ichigo shouted as he flung his firing arm forwards releasing the pent up reiatsu.

A six-pronged tsuba shot forwards from the badge and collided with the creature. This time though rather than just plowing through the attack the creature was pushed backwards and crashed into the ground from the force of the strengthened attack. "Yes" Ichigo shouted jumping up waving his arms in the air "I hit the creature," Ichigo said in a singsong voice. "So it's just like a getsuga after all" Ichigo said calming down over his successive hit on the creature "charge it up and let it fly, although…if I didn't have all that experience from my previous fights and the reaction timing I don't think I could have done it."

Ichigo turned back to where the creature had landed to hear a sound of movement as it tried to stand up, which it did so without any problem at all seemingly regenerating itself, healing all the minor injuries inflicted to it. "What!" Ichigo shouted "regeneration, that's cheating…damn I forgot to try and smash that little red orb in it's abdomen" calming down and realising his mistake. Ichigo threw another attack at the creature attempting to disable it before it could fly again or move from its current position. Unfortunately the creature dodged left and missed the attack preventing itself to fall for the attack again. Ichigo had been running towards it though anticipating that the creature might dodge and was upon it in mere moments sliding on his back between the creature's legs to strike the red orb. Ichigo hit the red orb as hard as he could and it shattered in a spider web like fashion causing the creature to go limp fall apart and turn into ash.

"Well that was unexpected" Ichigo said coughing from having all the ash land on him. Standing up Ichigo dusted himself off and put the substitute badge into his jacket pocket and continued on searching for a way to leave.

* * *

(Two days later)

"Hey you" a voice sounded from behind and to the right of Ichigo.

Ichigo stopped and turned around and looked up a small rock slope to where a girl with light blue hair and glasses was standing with a katana in hand while wearing what appeared to be a school uniform.

"How long have you been here? You look dirty, have you had to fight a Tavoo? If so it's highly unlikely that you could have survived without some kind of weapon…well whatever you could have gotten something from the wreckage of a building" the girl said to Ichigo.

A Tavoo? What was that? Was she talking about that weird flying creature with the orb in it? "I don't know how long I've been here," Ichigo said to the girl "let me check" Ichigo said pulling out his phone to look at the time. _"Hmm…let's see…two days…two days"_ Ichigo read on his phone. "How the hell has it been two days, the change in daylight is barely anything at all!" Ichigo shouted more to himself than at the girl watching him.

"Quite, or you'll attract attention to us" the girl said putting two of her fingers over her lips to emphasize the importance. "So" the girl said getting back to the previous conversation "you've been here for two days without any assistance…even during your nosebleed" the girl sounded wary.

"Yeah that was some insane thing I got, but it…hey wait a minute how do you know about the nosebleed?" Ichigo accusingly pointed a finger at the girl in front of him.

"It happens to everyone that comes here" the girl replied casually assuming that the final word Ichigo was about to say was 'but it stopped' "don't worry though it only happens once." The girl looked over Ichigo once more "come on we've got a better chance of surviving if we stick together until the others get here, once they're here we can find the exit and go back home"

"What others?" Ichigo said with a questioning look on his face causing the girl to face palm at his obtusiveness.

"So you didn't see all the other's that came past you?" the girl said receiving a shake of the head and a questioning look in return answering her question. The girl sighed before continuing, "Well the others saw you, obviously they didn't seem to care enough to tell you where to go, bloody idiots" the girl whispered the last part to herself. "Well to tell you in short, you're in Psyren"

"Well, the phone lady did say I'd be going to Psyren" Ichigo said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"And I'm assuming you pressed yes because there's a big five-hundred-million yen prize up for grabs" the girl said hoping that that truly wasn't the case, all the people who tried to get the prize ended up dying anyway.

"There's…a prize?" Ichigo said in bewilderment dragging it out slowly to make sure he heard it correctly. The phone lady never said anything about a prize.

"Yeah but there's rules in this game that prevent you from getting the prize, they're on…" the girl said to Ichigo only to get interrupted by him.

"…The back of the card," Ichigo sighed and ran a hand through his hair "I know, I saw that not long after I came here, I decided to study the card and by mere coincidence I held it up in front of my face and saw the number fifty in the top left corner as well as a list of rules that I have to abide by lest I be turned to ash, and knowing my luck those rules are probably one-hundred percent true, trust me, my mouth is shut tight"

"You can talk to others who have been to Psyren before though" the girl said getting a nod in response from Ichigo. "Come on I'll show you where to go, but while we wait for the phone to ring we'll have to constantly move about to avoid the Tavoo, if not kill them, come to think of it have you killed a Tavoo yet? You didn't answer my question earlier. It's almost impossible for a newbie to avoid the Tavoo let alone kill it"

"Yeah it looked like a giant flying insect," Ichigo said putting his arms out to his sides to emphasize how big it was "it was huuuge, but I killed it by hitting the red shiny thing on it" Ichigo finished off quickly, avoiding to tell how exactly he got close enough to hit the orb and break it.

"It sounds like you got lucky," the girl said "well whatever, we have to survive until the phone rings so lets go."

"Hmm, ok, I'll follow, what's your name? Mine's Ichigo, Ichigo Kurosaki" Ichigo said introducing himself to the girl while walking up the mound of rocks to reach her location

"Amamiya Sakurako" the girl said in return "you're the first person to believe me in a while, at least for the beginning part of the story about this place, I was tempted to give up and just tell you to shut up and follow me for a moment, but you seem to be understanding even if you are a little clueless"

"Hey! I'm not clueless" Ichigo shouted at her only to receive a slight bonk on the head as Amamiya hit Ichigo on the head with her sheathed katana.

"Shut up" Amamiya said in a cold fashion "do you want me to leave you here to die?"

"No" Ichigo said, _"What's with the sudden change in attitude, oh well, Unohana does better."_

"Then be quite," Amamiya said turning around, she began heading in the direction of a building in the distance that had tilted over but was still standing.

* * *

(Three days later)

"Ahhhhhhh" Ichigo whined "when's the stupid phone going to ring, it's already been five days, I need to get back to training and my family is probably worried sick about me because the last time I went missing for days on end was over a year ago, they're probably gonna think I'm dead again, when they find out I'm not Yuzu's gonna kill me." People do turn mad with power after all, Ichigo had had it for a mere year and even he did not escape unscathed.

The reason why no one had yet complained about Ichigo's whining was because they were all groveling at his feet in pain because they had all chosen to pick a fight with him except for Amamiya and a person called Asaga Hyru. He was tall in stature and was about the same height as Ichigo, the only difference was a couple of centimetres in Asaga's favour. He had orange hair and appeared to be wearing a school uniform as well, seriously what's with all the high schooler's, it was only three so far but still, all of them were decked out in one way or another. Amamiya had a katana, Ichigo had his fullbring, natural strength, speed and sword skills if he got to use Amamiya's katana, and Asaga had his massive size and muscular body that no doubt probably had some of the same kind of monstrous strength that Chad possessed, not on the same level mind you as Chad's fullbring granted him strength far beyond that of any regular humans, well all fullbrings did and Ichigo didn't think this guy had one, he wasn't about to try and find out either. Ichigo had wanted to avoid as many fights as possible with the people here and he seemed sensible enough even if Ichigo was getting on his nerves a bit.

"Another has arrived" Amamiya said standing weakly to her feet "hopefully this will be the last one and then we can go home"

"Woah there, are you sure you should be moving? You've been running around a lot and you're almost completely exhausted" Ichigo said instantly snapping out of his whining fit turning serious. "If I can't stop you I'm coming with you," Ichigo said causing Amamiya to look at him with a critical eye.

To be honest, out of all the people in Psyren so far Ichigo was the only one she held at least a small amount of trust for, and that was because of how understanding he seemed to be when she told him about Psyren. He didn't ask for her to tell him any more even though he knew she was withholding information from him. When she asked him why he just said _"don't tell me if you don't want me to I've already figured out quiet a bit about Psyren, plus I don't want to trample all over you and hurt your feelings, I'll listen when you want to tell me, but it'll have to wait for some time because when we leave I expect we're going to have to come back again and I have some things to do before then."_

"Fine" Amamiya said as she headed towards the exit of the building "but don't fall behind"

"I won't, worry more about yourself for the moment, you look like you're going to collapse at any given time" Ichigo said.

* * *

"W-where the hell am I?" Ageha Yoshina said to himself as he stood bewildered assessing the new landscape before him. "Why me…why's this happening?" _"First I was blinded by the two thugs, and then as I was scrambling to get away my phone rang, I answered and now I'm…I'm…where is this?"_ Ageha thought as he desperately tried to make sense of what was in front of him.

"Ahhhhh, help me!" a voice cried out nearby startling Ageha and causing him to break out of his wonderment of the world before him and run towards the persons cry for help.

When Ageha found the man there was a giant centipede like creature behind the man ready to take his life and did so as Ageha once again found himself freaked out by the sudden changes to the world he was in and froze to watch in horror as the man was impaled on the things pincers and died almost instantly.

Stepping backwards and falling onto his back Ageha found himself terrified of the thing that stood before him as it crept closer causing an almost certain air of impending death. Ageha supported himself on his hands and feet and crawled backwards slowly when suddenly blood from the creature was flying everywhere as it was split vertically by a blade that could be heard being put back into it's sheath with the sound of a slight 'shink'.

There stood before him was the very girl he was looking for, Amamiya, but someone else was standing there beside her, a dark aura exuding from his right hand where he seemed to be grasping something tightly. He stood even taller than Ageha himself, had bright orange hair and a look of seriousness on his face due to the scowl that seemed to be semi-permanent.

"You" Amamiya said a look of anger covering her face "what are you doing here?"

"Eh, you know this guy?" Ichigo asked Amamiya who turned to answer him.

"Unfortunately yes, yes I do" Amamiya said answering Ichigo turning back to Ageha.

"Hey I'm kinda wondering myself why or even how I got here," Ageha said answering the question Amamiya put before him.

Amamiya just yanked her sword out of her sheath and slammed it into the ground in front of Ageha right between his legs making him almost shit his pants in fright of Amamiya's wrath. "You idiot!" Amamiya screamed at him, "You used the red calling card I told you not to use didn't you?!" Amamiya said as though it were more of a statement than a question.

"Hehe" Ageha laughed uncomfortably at how close he almost had his balls cut off by none other than Amamiya herself. "Curiosity got the cats tongue," Ageha explained himself "plus you said 'save me' right before you disappeared"

"And I still told you not to use it" Amamiya said a little more softly than before small tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "When I found out that you got a calling card I tried telling you not to use it, I told you that so that you might live" Amamiya said voice growing weaker by the second, not because of her emotions but rather because she was tiring quickly and her legs were visibly shaking from the strain of keeping her up right.

Ichigo quickly noticed this and moved in to catch Amamiya before she hit the ground unconscious. "Ah jeez, not now" Ichigo said to himself. Ichigo looked at the boy in front of him and saw that he was worried for Amamiya and was confused as to why she had suddenly collapsed like that. "Hey kid what's your name?" Ichigo asked lifting Amamiya up onto his back and picking up her Katana while doing so.

"It's Ageha, Ageha Yoshina," the blue haired midget in front of Ichigo said. Gaining some composure and confidence back from what had just happened Ageha spoke again "and I ain't some little kid" Ageha said standing back up to his full height still a good twenty centimetres shorter than Ichigo.

"You just said it yourself kid" Ichigo said causing Ageha to grow confused "you're little ya midget" a smug grin now on Ichigo's face as he said those words, it had been quiet some time since Ichigo had said that, the last time was to Rukia. Before Ageha could retort though Ichigo spoke again "Come on now we haven't got all day, some of us have been waiting roughly five days for this, the last person to arrive, the phone's gonna start ringing soon."

When Ichigo finished he began to walk away towards an unspecified destination that Ageha followed him to, trusting the older teen in front of him to take care of Amamiya as he carried her. Amamiya seemed to know and trust the guy at least so he didn't have to worry about her being with him, at least until a reason was given for him not to. He was a stranger to this new land and the teen in front of him seemed to know his way around for now so it was probably best to play follow the leader until he got back home.

* * *

"Is he the last one" one of the people in the room said "we shouldn't wait for much longer, after all that money ain't gonna wait forever for me, I sure hope that buy I made for the card was worth it"

"That money's mine punk" said a rather large man who flipped out a butterfly knife to threaten the others and prove his point.

Ichigo sighed to himself as he put Amamiya down to rest up against a smooth concrete slab "you'd think they would have stopped once I showed them who's in charge, oh well, nothing much I can do now"

The one to step up and stop the fighting however was Asaga. He calmly walked up behind the man with the butterfly knife tapped him on the shoulder and as the man turned around to face him he punched the man in the face breaking his nose and causing him to fall over losing his grip on the butterfly knife. The butterfly knife skidded over the concrete floor and under some rubble. "You're in my way. Go to hell" Asaga said to the man. "I'm looking for a junior by the name of Tatsuo…ring a bell to anyone?"

"You bastard!" the man yelled getting back up and prepping to let his fist fly in Asaga's face who didn't seem to be fazed at all and just got ready to block the attack and smash the other guy into the ground. But to his surprise Ageha got in the middle of both and caught the man's fist before any fighting could occur.

"Hey kid get out of the way unless you wanna get hurt, in that case then I welcome you but I'd rather only settle my case with the other guy if you don't mind me" Asaga said to Ageha asking him to not but into his fight.

"If it's a fight you're looking for, I'm ready anytime but only after we get out of this place" Ageha said to Asaga while letting go of the other man's fist to let him back away from the two in front of him.

Asaga looked at him angered by the move Ageha made in front of him saying "You bastard." Asaga was about to fight Ageha but was stopped by the sound of the pay phone ringing.

'It wasn't broken?' Was the thought on most of the people's minds, all except Ichigo who had already read the rules on the back of the card and advanced towards it to pick it up receiving several cries from behind him saying that they should be the one to pick up the pay phone. Ichigo knew that it didn't matter who picked up the pay phone though as it seemed that from what he could make of it, and that there wasn't any first place prize for picking it up first, in fact it seemed that the game was designed for all of them having an equal chance to pass. Ichigo picked up the phone.

"Those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair," a womans voice called out to everyone in their heads, the very same woman from the pay phone examination "those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair, those who reach Psyren shall be granted the world, there is only one exit in this game. Those seeking Psyren…those searching for the exit from this world…find the gate!" the womans voice finished off with a shout showing them a mental image of another pay phone. With that the image faded and everyone was back in the environment they stood in earlier.

A few people were confused as to what that was and were wondering what to do until a piercing cry echoed throughout the land bringing the attention of everyone. After hearing the cry a few people thought that that was the way to the gate and after short discussion began to head out, each with their own ulterior motives, most of them for money, one for going home, and another to find a lost friend, all except for Ichigo and Ageha who patiently waited for Amamiya to awaken and tell them where to go, as she seemed to be the most experienced out of all of them.


	3. Your a Psyren drifter now

Amamiya groaned as she awoke from her sleep alerting both Ichigo and Ageha of her now conscious state. Looking up and around as Amamiya coughed she noticed that nearly everyone was gone save Ichigo and Ageha. Amamiya coughed a bit before she spoke "Where are they? Where are the others? Where did they go?" Amamiya screamed the last part.

"They went towards the siren, the noise that came not long after the phone call ended, I didn't say anything because they wouldn't have believed me even if I told them that there were dangers out there far bigger than they could handle" Ichigo said to Amamiya causing her to break into a sobbing fit. "Ageha tried to stop them by showing them the body of that thing you killed earlier and the guy it killed, too bad he didn't realise that the bodies here turn to ash as soon as they die, the others didn't believe a thing he said after that and went on their way"

"See I told you that no one would believe me," Amamiya sobbed curling up into a ball and crying "no one ever does, it's too late for them now, that siren wasn't a signal for the gate it was a warning, a warning to tell you to stay away no matter what. Over there, the pay phone the memo button, push the memo button" Amamiya said pointing towards the payphone.

Ageha got up as fast as he could and pushed the memo button like Amamiya told him to and was shocked to find a map. "Let's see" Ageha said to himself "here would be the starting point I'm guessing and here would be the gate from what I can make out of the symbol…what's this though? The dark shaded area" Ageha specified asking Amamiya although not turning around to look at her.

"The danger zone…" Amamiya coughed out "you have to stay as far away from the tower in the middle as possible, even then there is almost a one-hundred percent possibility hat you will die just by entering the danger zone, and that tends to only be for those who have never been to Psyren before, the more experienced even have trouble inside the danger zones and more often then not get killed, you can't follow them, promise me you won't follow them"

"I'm sorr-" Ichigo cut off Ageha.

"No you're not, if anyones going to save them it's me, I've fought those things before Ageha and what I say goes" Ichigo said standing up walking over to Amamiya's katana and picking it up. "I'm going to make a copy of the map so when I'm done I can head for the gate with whoever I have saved, you should make a copy as well and head for the gate, take Amamiya with you"

"What are you talking about? I bet I'm the better fighter, this is also your first time here as well," Ageha said trying to go instead of Ichigo.

"No!" Ichigo shouted at Ageha "You don't even know how to use a sword do you? Even if you did at the moment all the blade would do in your hands is bounce off their reinforced skin and even if you did manage to cut them you probably wouldn't last long," Ichigo said all while advancing towards Ageha, a serious look on his face. "Look" Ichigo said his seriousness fading away being replaced with something that looked more like someone who was pleading for another to do something for them "I know how you feel, you want to save them and play hero right, to protect them from harm…well I'm asking you to do that right now, protect Amamiya for me and head to the gate, you can wait for me there if you want to, I promise I'll be coming back, now get a copy of that map and go, I'll catch up soon"

After hearing Ichigo's speech Ageha listened and left with Amamiya to head for the gate leaving Ichigo standing outside the building as he saw them off and left towards the siren tower to find any survivors.

* * *

It was horrible, the fat boy that wanted to go home so badly was cut down by a thing he didn't even get to look at, he instantly died while the others stood there in shock at what had just happened. What did just happen? They didn't see it either and didn't know whom the attacker was either until it landed in the middle of their group.

"What the hell?" Asaga said turning his head to face the thing…no person that stood before him clothed in nothing but black boots, black pants, an apron and some kind of helmet that ha a single lens in the front of it that glowed an eerie yellow. In it's right hand it held a crossbow, the weapon that killed the scared boy in front of them.

None of them moved, too shocked seeing what happened in front of them until the persons hand grasped the man with the shaved head by his collar and flipped him over smashing and instantly killing the man.

"H-he killed them" the teen in the skullcap said clearly frightened by what he was seeing. What ever did he do to deserve this? Nothing probably, he just had a case of bad luck.

The monster of a man in front of them made a shrill cry and a few monsters crawled into view of the only people that were left alive. The person with the name tag Alfred pinned to it's cuff advanced towards them.

Asaga being the closest tried to end it by bringing his foot down on Alfred's head and then repeatedly slamming his foot into it's head trying to kill it. However the material of the helmet that it wore would not break and Alfred grabbed onto Asaga's foot and flung him into a nearby mountain causing rocks to fall down with him as he fell to the ground almost critically injured.

While a short man began to run away from a centipede like monster not too dissimilar to the one Ageha saw, Alfred loaded another shot in his crossbow and shot the teen with the skull cap in the back as he tried to run away. Straight after that however the large man tried bashing in the things head with a rock causing Alfred to crumple to the ground for a moment making the large man think that he had won for a moment until Alfred got up and turned around and carefully placed his hands on the mans head crossing his arms over before spinning the mans head so fast that it ripped off of his neck.

"Agro" Alfred said looking around him to see all the people within the immediate vicinity dead or dying.

* * *

_"Ahh, crap, what was that thing? It definitely wasn't human, no human can do what it did"_ or so Asaga thought _"Nnnggghhmmppp, crap I can barely move after that, something has to be broken, how I survived that is nothing short of a miracle."_ Asaga continued to struggle a bit further before another monster like creature descended upon him threatening to kill him. _"Won't I ever find Tatsuo, damn"_

"You're annoying me, now die" a voice called out from behind Asaga that reminded him of a certain orange haired teen that was also at the payphone with everyone else. Asaga just watched as Ichigo jumped over the top of him and began to fight the monster as though it were second nature, dodging and weaving in and out of the monsters strikes while holding a katana in his left hand and a wooden badge in his right.

Ichigo brought the wooden badge up to the katana he held and managed to pulse a tiny bit of reiatsu into the blade allowing him to cut all the way through the monster and strike it's core as he brought the katana down from above through the monster trying to deliver as much strength as he could into the strike. The monster fell to pieces and turned to ash in front of him as it died.

"Come on" Ichigo said to Asaga as he helped haul the teen to his feet "we've gotta go quickly the other's are waiting for us at the gate, I'll explain how we found out where the gate really is later alright we've just gotta follow the copy of the map I made ok"

Asaga froze "There was a map…"Asaga paused fury filling his being "and you let the others leave without knowledge of it" Asaga began to yell as he grabbed Ichigo by the collar of his shirt and lifted him off the ground.

"Hey I only just found out about it myself, and even if I told you to wait you wouldn't have believed me if I told you that that body that Ageha tried to show you was gone because it turned to ash, now would you" Ichigo said pulling himself out of Asaga's grip. "Blame me all you want for their deaths, it was their own stupidity and selfish desires that got in the way and cost them their lives, if they only had a little more patience they would have found out about the map and lived. I've learnt that much in life and it's helped me a lot more than could ever hope for," Ichigo said to Asaga turning away from him and looking over towards where Alfred was to see him looking for them. "That guy killed the rest of them didn't he?" Ichigo said to Asaga.

"No…there was one other guy, he'd be in pretty bad shape right now, probably on the verge of dying. He got an arrow to the back from that things crossbow, he was still alive when I last saw him" Asaga answered Ichigo.

"Then I'm going to go look for him and check to see if he's still alive, you go on ahead and tell the others to leave, you as well, I'll be fine" Ichigo said "here take the map, I've already memorised it so I'll be able to make my way over without it anyway, well see ya, by the way you're here on the map" Ichigo said pointing at a part on the map before turning around and leaving Asaga to go by himself to the gate.

_"That guy's insane, no ordinary human would do what he just said, I'll be waiting for you, we won't leave not until you're back"_ Asaga thought to himself as he left to head for the gate.

* * *

"Ahh there you are…hey still alive and breathing" Ichigo spoke quietly to the guy on the ground that seemed to be whimpering from the pain of having an arrow lodged in his back.

"It hurts" the guy with the skullcap said. To Ichigo as Ichigo hauled him to his feet and put his arm around his shoulders to support the skullcap dude. "Hey, if I don't make it, and I probably won't, I want you to take my Psyren card to my mother, she can probably make some money out of it. My names Sugita Nozomi, you should be able to find my mother if you look for my name in some place"

"Hey you're not going to die, I won't allow it" Ichigo said to him as he began to walk forwards in the direction of the gate.

A whooshing sound came from behind Ichigo a few minutes later and hit both himself and Sugita nocking them out of the things path and causing both to tumble a fair distance before Ichigo could right himself and bring himself to his feet.

"That soul wasn't very nutritious, it was disgusting, barely any spirit energy at all" a beast said to itself complaining over the meal it just ate. It had a white mask on it's face and a hole through it's body and it's body took the rough shape of some find of bird.

"A hollow?" Ichigo asked himself. He shouldn't be able to see hollows again yet, his spirit energy hadn't recovered enough for that to happen, but then again a lot of things shouldn't happen or be possible.

"Oh, so you can see me, you must have some spirit energy to be able to see me" the hollow said turning around on it's bird feet "however you might not, it's quite hard to discern those who do have spirit from those who don't nowadays or even to find a human, especially ever since 'that'. You look all neat and tidy suggesting that you're not from around here…where did you come from?"

"I'm not telling until you tell me where I am?" Ichigo replied to the hollow "although I must say I'm quite surprised, normally most hollows have lost their mind"

"Well then I'll just have to find that out myself, and then when I'm done with you I can eat your soul" the hollow said and lunged at Ichigo.

Ichigo dived out of the way and flung a tsuba attack at the hollow hitting it square in the side eliciting a howl of pain from the hollow. Ichigo ran at the hollow and went to slash at it's mask but the hollow backed away and slashed rapidly at Ichigo with it's clawed feet striking him in the chest and cutting right into it breaking a few ribs in the process. The force of the hollow's strike pushed Ichigo back about twenty feet and onto his back as his gasped in pain.

_"Shit, and I don't even know bringer light yet, now's a good as any time to practice though, if I don't learn fast I'll probably die and I can't let that happen"_ Ichigo thought as he got to his feet his right hand pressing against the wound on hi chest trying to ease the pain.

Ichigo once again charged at the hollow and flung out another tsuba at the hollow. However this time the hollow could see where the attack was coming from and dodged easily due to the lack of speed that the attack held.

"I see, you are spiritually aware, that attack of yours definitely resembled reiatsu, not that PSI stuff the other humans talked about" the hollow stated now more vigorous in it's attempts to absorb Ichigo's reiatsu as it charged at him and spread it's wings firing off bolts of metal to shred Ichigo.

Ichigo saw the attack coming but he didn't know what to do he couldn't go left or right, up was the only option and so he jumped causing a trail of green sparks to come out of his feet as he soared into the air and came down upon the hollow.

"What the f-" the hollow said in surprise of Ichigo's jump and the technique that he used to get so high, the hollow had clearly never seen anything like that before.

Ichigo felt a rush of vertigo and adrenalin trying yet again fullbringing the air around him, he was successful but only to the point where it would accelerate himself slightly faster than a regular fall, to descend upon the hollow and cut it through it's mask disabling the hollow before it could complete it's sentence. The hollow then just disintegrated into rishi and disappeared in a gust of wind that swept through the valley uncovering from the dusty air one of the many mountains of Japan, Mt Fuji.

Ichigo stumbled as he hit the ground and fell over clutching his chest yet again and spit up a globule of blood. His lungs were bleeding. "Ah shit, I might not make it back now" Ichigo said to himself chuckling a bit then hunching over again from the pain coming from his chest "first hollow after being able to see them again and I'm given serious injuries, just great. And what the hell is Mt Fuji doing here, this can't be the future can it?" Ichigo just stood up and began to try and move as fast as he could towards the gate, the less time spent here now, the better.

* * *

"How the hell do you kill this Amamiya?" Asaga shouted as the humanoid monster called Alfred plowed through the wall after having its head repeatedly bashed by a metal poll Asaga had now dropped.

"The red sphere on its body…" Amamiya coughed "there should be a red sphere somewhere on it's body" Amamiya told Asaga as she lay against a wall at the bottom of some stairs that were inside a building they currently found themselves in. "If you break it, it will die"

"Alright then" Ageha said "Asaga out of the way" Ageha called out as he came forwards with a serrated pole he'd found and swung it at the monster.

However the monster predicted this movement from the amount of time it was given and caught the pole before it pierced it's chest but not before some of the metal on the pole pierced and caught onto it's apron. The monster then proceeded to use it's superhuman strength to rip the pole out of Ageha's hands and tore it's apron off in the process revealing a glowing red orb in the process implanted in it's chest.

"There it is!" Ageha called out backing away from the monster.

"No shit" Asaga said sounding strained as he said those words and obviously pissed off at the situation they found themselves in. Fighting monsters was not a priority of his on the to do list, but if it had to be done it had to be done.

"Alright here I go again, Asaga get out another poll, the monster guy might catch this again and when he does I want you to go for the orb as well" Ageha said grasping onto another poll readying himself as Alfred approached them. "Ahhh" Ageha shouted swinging the poll with all his might at the red orb on the creature's abdomen. To no ones surprise the monster caught it again and was about to proceed to punch forward with it's other arm when another poll swung from Asaga connected with the red orb.

The red orb only cracked under the force of the hit and Alfred looked down at the poll there and said "Abraham?" before stopping it's punch mid swing and quickly grasping onto the other poll and swinging both forwards making Asaga and Ageha fly to the end of the room and impact with the concrete wall with a solid thud.

"That should have killed it" Ageha gasped out left eye closed because of the pain that was coursing throughout his body "so why is it still moving…Amamiya get down you'll get hurt more than you already are!" Ageha shouted afraid for Amamiya's well being as she stood in front of them watching Alfred pull out his crossbow.

"You need to leave now," Amamiya told them "go to the pay phone and insert your calling cards while holding the phone up to your ear" Amamiya said as she pulled off her glasses and muttered a single word 'rise' while pulling off her glasses before Alfred shot with the crossbow he held straight at Amamiya's head.

…Amamiya caught the arrow between her fingers a split second before it punctured her right eye. Seemingly exhausted from the feat of catching an arrow Amamiya grasped her head as a small trickle of blood began to make it's way out of her nose.

Alfred stood unmoving and prepared another arrow as though it's mindlessness could think that it was a simple fluke and that she would not be able to do it again, moments later he fired straight at the same target, Amamiya's head. Amamiya clearly unable to take the strain of yet again catching another arrow dodged falling to the ground panting and clutching her head in pain as blood began to pour out of her nose.

Aldfed realised with it's limited intelligence that it was indeed not a fluke and would require a little more power behind the force of the throw to get Amamiya, not realising that Amamiya wouldn't be able to catch another bolt through the crossbow. Alfred grasped tree arrows between it's knuckles and built up enough power in his arm for it to visibly bulge. What Alfred didn't expect to happen next was for a long katana sword to be protruding through the core in his abdomen. Dropping the arrows Alfred turned around snapping the Katana blade off of its hilt giving Ichigo reason to drop the hilt as he jumped back only capable of doing so from long hardened battle reflexes and flung a dark spiral of energy at Alfred preventing him from gaining a choke hold on Ichigo by mere centimetres.

"What the hell, your not supposed to be able to move after that" Ichigo panted from the effort of having to travel all the way to the gate, save Amamiya from being impaled by arrows, jumping back to avoid being strangled and firing a weakened tsuba at Alfred.

Alfreds legs just began to crumple beneath him as he reached out with his right hand intent on bringing Ichigo down with him while the sudden weight distortion on the ground from Ichigo's presence dislodged a section of earth and the ground gave way to a cliff face. Ichigo just stumbled away from the spot barely making it in time as the only thing left hanging over the ledge were his legs dangling there as he collapsed to the ground feeling faint after all of his blood loss through the wound on his chest, only will power driving him to make it back to the others and save them before they died, and to make it back home to his family.

"Y-you made it" Asaga said cracking open an eye ignoring the pain to see Ichigo on the ground breathing heavily, otherwise unmoving. "We wouldn't leave you, we owed you after all for saving us, but it looks like you saved us again huh"

"Yeah, I guess I did," Ichigo replied "let's…let's just lie down for a minute, I'm not feeling that great, blood loss and broken bones isn't the healthiest of things ya know." Ichigo made a halfhearted attempt after that to turn over and face the others but gave up half way and decided to lie on his back instead, realising that the wound on his chest had already slowed to a trickle of blood, either he was about to die or he was healing faster than expected. _"Amamiya's hiding something interesting, I wonder if the nosebleed I got a few days ago is a sign of me being able to gain similar abilities"_ Ichigo thought to himself as he stared at the ceiling.

A few minutes later Ichigo, Asaga and Ageha managed to stumble to their feet. Ichigo picked up Amamiya and walked up the stairs towards the area he believed the payphone to be in the others in tow.

"Hey Amamiya," Ageha spoke up "what were those things?"

"Those were Tavoo. They can take on forms that are more or less humanoid or insect like. I don't know much else about them all information about them came second handed all of which have died here"

"Wait," Ageha said "there were others before us?"

"Yes, this little game has been going on for some time now there have been many people before us that have come here and died" Amamiya explained.

"What else can you tell us?" Ageha said wanting to know more.

"No not right now, we have to make it to leave Psyren and get to a safe place to talk about it" Amamiya said.

"No, I'm not leaving until I get answers" Ageha said sitting down and crossing his arms in defiance.

"Oh…then you can stay here…forever" Amamiya said creepily to Ageha freaking him and Asaga out. "Ichigo put me down, I'll show you guys how to leave using the payphone" Amamiya said trying to get off Ichigo's back. Ichigo complied with Amaiya's request but stood by her side as she stumbled on her feet a bit due to loss of extremely generous amounts of blood through her nose. "You just insert your card here and hold up the phone-"

"You already told us Amamiya, you really need help to stop that nosebleed of yours under control, it's starting to get to your head, you probably can't even see straight let alone think properly" Asaga said to Amamiya.

"Oh, but we all have to take out our cards first to activate it anyway" Amamiya said urging the others to do it and when they did the phone glowed for a moment before Amamiya inserted her card and held the phone up to her ear, subsequently disappearing in a small glow of light.

"Let's go" Ichigo said stepping up to the phone and inserting his card next and picking up the phone.

* * *

Ichigo appeared in a hallway, it was almost exactly identical to the one he was just in, only it looked…newer? Ichigo walked up to a window near him and looked outside to see people just going about their day-to-day life as though nothing had ever happened. The building couldn't be newer then, no such disaster as the one he saw had happened in the last few years. Where was he before?

"We're back, back from the future?" Amamiya's voice could be heard from the right of Ichigo in the hallway. Ichigo turned to find Amamiya seated up against the wall having pulled out her phone and searching through the contacts. "Please be quite." Amamiya said as Asaga and Ageha came into existence in the room and started talking to themselves asking questions on where they were.

"Hey you, guy with the super powers" Ageha said, "Where are we?" Ageha ordered.

"Amamiya said we were in the future" Ichigo answered Ageha watching as his face morphed into one that didn't look like he believed what he heard. "It makes sense, I saw Mt Fuji," Ichigo stated, "I've dealt with a lot of strange shit before so I believe her and I won't change my mind until proven otherwise. That was the future of Japan and possibly the world and we're probably being given a chance to change it although I don't think that that was the strict intentions of the woman on the phone so we'll have to act on our own for that"

The sound of Amamiya's phone hitting the floor brought the others out of their conversation about Psyren and to Amamiya. "Sakurako!" a woman's concerned voice came from the phone beside Amamiya's head her nosebleed intensified. "You made it back! You're back from Psyren! Are you alright? Answer me!"

"Hey, since Amamiya called you I'm assuming you're someone close to her then" Ichigo said picking up the phone by Amamiya's head while trying to stem the bleeding in Amamiya's nose with the limited knowledge he had from the clinic but to no avail as her nose continued to bleed.

"Who are you? Where is she?" the woman questioned clearly worried.

"I went to as well Psyren and we came back together with two others" Ichigo said "she's got a nosebleed that won't stop, and seeing that you know about Psyren I'm assuming you know how to fix it"

"…Damn she overused her PSI, I warned her about it's strain on the mind" the woman said to herself.

_"There it is again, PSI, I wonder what it is, can I use it now? She's got a nosebleed, I had a nosebleed, makes sense, I'll find out later"_ Ichigo thought.

"Bllarrghhhgf" the sound of vomiting came from the other end of the phone causing Ichigo to wonder what the hell the woman was doing "I had one to many beer, bleh" the answer came from the woman causing Ichigo to face vault.

_"What the fuck…" _was all that Ichigo could say in his mind not noticing Amamiya grip her head again and cover her ears as though there were a broken microphone squealing that the others couldn't quite hear. Amamiya's friend was obviously older than her and an alcoholic. Did this girl have any friends her age? She didn't seem to like to hang around other teenagers judging by the way she behaved.

"Listen, she needs special help and not from a hospital, they wouldn't know what to do" the woman said to Ichigo.

"Reaaallly" Ichigo said sarcastically "I wouldn't have guessed"

"Shut up smart-ass, I'll be there soon, where are you?" the woman retorted and questioned.

"Hey does one of you know where we are?" Ichigo questioned the others turning on the speakerphone.

"Yeah I recognise that park over there, we're just outside Toyoguchi city, close to where I live" Asaga said pointing outside the window to a park down below.

"Toyoguchi? Isn't that right next to Shirataki?" Ageha said.

"Toyoguchi?" the woman said saying the name to herself more than asking "I'll be there in five. If you want Amamiya to get better stay where you are" the woman said before hanging up.

"Crap" Ichigo said, "Toyoguchi is two towns over from Karakura, gahhh"

* * *

(Outside the building in the park)

"How long's it been?" Ichigo asked casually to the others having placed Amamiya on a park bench a couple of minutes ago.

"'Bout ten" Asaga answered simply just before the sound of screeching tires filled the air and a biker came round the corner crashing into the sidewalk. After a moment a person came out walking towards them.

"I'm here…for Amamiya Sakurako" the woman said before running over to a lamp post and squatting down "just a sec…" the woman said before barfing.

_"Is it safe to leave Amamiya with this woman?"_ Ichigo thought as the woman walked back over to them after having put her helmet back on.

"Are you ok Amamiya?" the woman said to Amamiya.

Amamiya simply stirred a little before responding, "You shouldn't drink and drive Matsuri Sensei"

"Thank god, it's already been five days, I thought I wouldn't hear from you again" Matsuri said before reaching to pick Amamiya up and take her to where her bike was.

"Where exactly is this 'special help' you said you'd be taking to Amamiya to?" Ichigo asked checking whether or not it was actually safe to let Matsuri take her to the help, Ichigo could just take her to Orihime if it really was as bad as it was made out to be but that would take time.

"Don't worry, once I've gotten her help I'll take her home, the headlines will probably say 'run away returns home safely' or something like that" Matsuri said looking back over her shoulder allowing Ageha to go unnoticed as he stepped in her path preventing Matsuri from reaching her bike. Matsuri turned around and a frown grew on her face but her helmet covered it up. "Get out of the way kid"

"Like hell I wi-" Ageha said but stopped when Ichigo flashed in beside him seemingly disappearing from behind Matsuri and reappearing with a hand on his shoulder, it was a lot slower than it appeared though.

"Amamiya seems to trust her, I wouldn't let it get to you" Ichigo said noticing the wide-eyed look he was getting from Asaga and Ageha, Ichigo was almost sure that Matsuri had the same look on her face but then he thought that he could see a narrowing of her eyes behind the black tinted visor her eyes hid behind. Ichigo looked up from Ageha and said to Matsuri "just get her home safely we'll probably meet up again sooner or later anyway"

"Don't underestimate me 'cause I'm drunk…fullbringer" Matsuri said, if he was surprised he didn't show it, he had suspected that something like this might happen. "Well it's been nice kids but I gotta go" Matsuri said, her bike flying out of the debris and landing perfectly upright in front of her. "Oh and just to let you know, you're now Nemesis Q's chosen ones and it won't be long before he calls you again and you go back to Psyren"

"What?!" Ageha shouted, "We're going back"

"Sure you are," Matsuri said climbing on her bike "at least until your point score drops to zero. I expect Nemesis Q will be calling again within the next two weeks, give or take a couple of days. Congrats, you're now official Psyren drifters." After that Matsuri left leaving a very confused and agitated Ageha while Asaga and Ichigo left to do their own thing.

* * *

"IIIIIICCCHHHIIIIIIIGOOOOO" Isshin shouted as Ichigo opened the front door to the house and ducked under one of his father's kicks for his head. Ichigo then grabbed his fathers foot and flung him out the front door closing and locking it straight afterwards.

"I'm home" Ichigo shouted out into the reaches of the house but was rather surprised when he didn't hear a reply. "Hmm, Karin must be helping Yuzu do the shopping then, that or I didn't notice how dark it was outside." Ichigo looked out the kitchen window and saw a star filled sky. _"Shit, I might have woken them up"_

"Ichigo, how dare you throw your father outside and leave him out there for the Yakuza to beat up, bad boy" Isshin could be heard from the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

"How'd you get back inside?" Ichigo said incredibly annoyed at his father's antics.

"Your father, aka me, has devised ways to get back into the house even if my brutal children lock me outside, besides you missing these past couple of days has really saddened your sisters and I had to keep them entertained and find a way of punishment for your behavior at making them worry" Isshin said proudly hands as fists on his hips standing tall and head raised.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I'm going to bed" Ichigo said pushing past Isshin, "I'll apologise to them tomorrow when they're awake, good night." Ichigo finally reached his bedroom door and opened it finding his window open._ "So that's how he got in…but how the hell did he climb up?"_ Ichigo thought before remembering what his father said _'…devised ways to get back into the house even if my brutal children lock me outside'_ Ichigo shivered at the thought collapsing onto his bed and drifting off to sleep, exhausted from the things he's had to do over the past five days.


	4. Chapter 4

Ichigo strained to get his eyes open as the morning came. Did he have to go to school this morning? The days in Psyren had really screwed up his sleep pattern, nothing like this had happened since he was a soul reaper and had to follow orders to kill hollows that appeared during the night. No he wouldn't go to school this morning, it was Friday, last day of the week. He really should remember what day it is.

He had missed out on his fullbring training, yes, that was something he had to wake up for, to get stronger to protect his friends and family, and to also prevent that future he saw with his own two eyes, the one that left the earth in ruins. Why hadn't Soul Society prevented such a thing from happening though, were the forces that caused that too powerful or was it because the rules of Soul Society prevented them from interacting with the living. Either way he still had to get stronger, possibly more so than he was before his power loss, then, then he would be able to protect everyone.

The sound of incessant knocking at Ichigo's door caught his attention, how long had that been going on? It didn't seem to matter as Yuzu and Karin both burst into the room.

"Ichi nii/Onii chan" they both cried.

"Where've you been?" Yuzu demanded. "Ever since you deal with the after life was over I thought you wouldn't disappear anymore and then you just vanish without a trace, you haven't gotten yourself in that Psyren thing everyone's talking about, have you? People who involve themselves in that tend to go missing for days on end sometimes and others simply vanish" Yuzu sobbed

Ichigo was surprised by this, just how long had this Psyren thing been going on for? He had certainly never heard about it.

* * *

One apology and short explanation later Ichigo ended up going to school to find out just who else knew about this place called Psyren.

"You dumbass Kurosaki," one Uryuu Ishida said as he spoke to the orange haired teen before him "this Psyren case has been going on for a long time, it's brewing all kinds of trouble and people with supernatural abilities have been popping up all over the place, well that's at least what people believe, all 'supernatural' abilities I know about only pertain to the spiritual side of things and I haven't sensed a single disturbance in the reishi flow in the air" Uryuu explained. "But seriously, how haven't you known about this?" Uryuu finished pushing his glasses up.

"I don't know, no one at school ever talks about it and I rarely ever watch the TV" Ichigo just shrugged after saying this to which Uryuu just sighed and shake his head. "Well that's all I needed to know for now I'll be going, see ya" Ichigo said as he headed for the school gates waving a hand over his shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going Kurosaki?" Uryuu said calling out to Ichigo annoyed at his antics.

"I don't think I know where I'm going, I know where I'm going" Ichigo replied with a smartass remark causing Uryuu to growl at him before turning and heading into class.

* * *

Ichigo strolled through the streets heading towards the base for Xcution when he heard a voice in his mind calling out to him.

"Where are you? I've been looking all over for you Ichigo" a voice sounding similar to that girl Amamiya he met in Psyren appeared in his mind.

Ichigo tried returning his voice in the same manner and seemed to succeed; having voices in your head for a little less than a year did help though. "Walking through the streets in a particular direction" Ichigo responded giving as little information as possible.

"Found you!" Amamiya responded to Ichigo.

_"Ah shit, run"_ were Ichigo's thoughts as he began sprinting towards the apartment complex _"I need to train can't she just leave me alone for now"_ Ichigo thought about all the training he had to catch up on and started using bringer light to accelerate the speed at which he advanced through the streets, the apartment building only a few blocks away.

"Why are you running? And furthermore why are you skipping school? You aren't a real delinquent are you?" Amamiya's voice came from beside Ichigo as he hurtled through the street.

Ichigo slowed to a stop and looked at the girl besides him with a quirked eyebrow wondering why she bothered to try and catch up to him not wondering how she had done it as he had already seen some of her capabilities in Psyren. "Why are you following me?" Ichigo questioned "And no I am not a delinquent." For a girl who seemed to be a dangerous sword weilder she seemed a lot more feminine than in Psyren because of the change of clothes she was wearing. They consisted of a striped scarf, a white t-shirt with a rabbit on the front of it that said 'little' across the rabbits face, and a skirt as well as striped stockings.

"You saved my life, I think it only appropriate that we go on a date" Amamiya gave a slight blush at saying the last part.

"A date?" Ichigo asked confirming what he had just heard earning a nod from Amamiya.

"And a little explanation on what Psyren is" Amamiya said to Ichigo "come, before we're late please"

Ichigo sighed and nodded his head, "Alright, I'll come with you, just don't disturb me tomorrow, I have something to finish before we go back to Psyren" Ichigo said listing his terms to which Amamiya smiled and nodded before grabbing Ichigo's arm and began dragging him through the streets to the train station as their mode of transport to Shirataki. "Hey, hey, watch it you'll pull out my arm with that monstrous strength of yours"

"I don't care, you seem to be able bodied enough to know when your in danger" Amamiya smiled to Ichigo as she continued to pull rather than drag now as Ichigo's feet had started moving on their own to prevent him from grinding along the pavement.

"Some caring person you are" Ichigo whispered.

"I can be if I want to be" Amamiya responded, her ears attuned with a little rise energy to figure out what he said about her.

* * *

"So where are we?" Ichigo said as he stood in a musical theatre. He went unanswered as Ichigo was ushered into a seat by Amamiya. "You do realise that the sign outside said that the performance isn't until tonight?" Ichigo said as he sat down in a chair next to Amamiya.

"I know" Amamiya said with one of the cutest smiles she could muster, "but Matsuri sensei said she'd play one right now" Amamiya said practically bouncing with joy.

Wow, who knew ones attitude could change so much? Ichigo did, too many captains bring questionable reasoning into conversations sometimes. Even behavioral standards of a child sometimes exceeded theirs.

"The drunk biker woman from last night, is a pianist?" Ichigo said giving Amamiya a questioning look. Ichigo was ignored though as a woman walked onto the stage and sat down in front of the piano that was on the stage in front of them and began to play.

Ichigo had never heard such a well-refined musical play; he thought it was rather amazing the way she held herself elegantly while playing the instrument in front of her. Even though Ichigo had never been much of a fan of classical music and only listened to it occasionally it drew him in and he deeply enjoyed hearing the notes flow in a rhythm as each finger struck a new key.

Besides Ichigo he could hear small quiet cheers of excitement as the music continued to play, Amamiya obviously loved this person as an adopted sister of sorts to be calling out like that and even appeared to love the music she was hearing from what he could hear. Ichigo turned and was rather...taken back by the look on Amamiya's face as she held her hands up in front of her in fists of excitement and stars glowed in her eyes, she was good at facial expressions, Ichigo would give her that, but not as good as Orihime, she was a strange one.

"How was that Amamiya?" Matsuri said when she finished playing and looked up into the theatre where they were seated. "That was a concert on me, celebrating your safe return from Psyren"

"Amazing as always Matsuri sensei." Amamiya screamed jumping out of her seat giving Ichigo reason to block his ears momentarily. Turning to Ichigo Amamiya told Ichigo who the pianist was. "That's Sakumo Matsuri, a world renown pianist" causing Ichigo to raise an eyebrow doubting that this was the truth but he believed her anyway.

Over the course of the next hour Matsuri played an entire concert just for Amamiya and she seemed to love every moment of it. To have someone you know willing to play a concert just for you is pretty amazing and Ichigo wondered just how exactly they came to meet each other.

Some time later after the concert Ichigo came face-to-face with the drunken biker pianist chick and to actually meet her when she was sober felt like a slightly different experience than the motorbike incident from last night.

"Yo sorry to keep ya waiting, had to change out of those clothes." Matsuri said approaching the two who were now in an area out the back of the stage. "And I'm guessing you're Ichigo, nice ta meet ya."

"Yeah, nice to meet you too" Ichigo replied.

"Hold it!" a man yelled as he burst through a door behind Ichigo and came to a stop just in front of him and looked at Matsuri. "I finally found you Yakumo! You have an interview for two magazines and a photo shoot today. Your schedule is booked solid. So what the heck are you doing here?"

"So you finally showed, here to lock me up again manager Kikuchi?" Matsuri said getting into a ready stance.

"It's Akuchi!" Akuchi said shocked that Matsuri still didn't know his name even after all the times he had told her that it wasn't Kikuchi, and that it was Akuchi.

"I go where I want and do what I want! Like I care about some stupid schedule" Matsuri said. Ichigo just looked on in confusion as the scene played out before him wondering what was going on exactly, did Matsuri try to get away from this stuff often?

"If you keep getting hung up on schedules you'll never get a girlfriend" Matsuri said to the man.

"I'm just doing my job" the man cried in return.

"Well then…how 'bout you let me go if I let you watch me grope Sakurako a bit" Matsuri said having already moved behind Amamiya to grope her, Amamiya disturbingly did not seem to care much at all and just stood there unmoving.

"Knock it off!" Akuchi yelled before realising that the problem he was facing might have to do with one of her faults, drinking. "Don't tell me…you're planning to go drinking again…aren't you?" Akuchi questioned Matsuri. Matsuri broke her eye contact with him and looked away suspiciously. "Look me in the eye!" Akcuchi said still not receiving a response from Matsuri.

"Oh so now you're trying to insult me? Is that how it is Kikuchi?!" Matsuri said.

"Not at all! I respect you for your talent" Akuchi pleaded hoping he hadn't upset Matsuri.

"I can't play the piano without a little booze" Matsuri said finally turning back around to her manager giving him a wink of confidence as to say that her statement was true.

"Quit talking absurd!" Akuchi said not believing a single thing that Matsuri just said al while wondering how a great pianist could turn out to be someone like her, Ichigo was also having similar thoughts at this point in time.

"Well I think it's time you left Kikuchi," Matsuri said ushering Akuchi towards the exit before shoving him out and closing the door behind him. "Couldn't he see that we were busy having a conversation between us?" Matsuri sighed a bit before turning back around to find Asaga and Ageha entering from the stage entrance.

"Sup" Asaga said casually still wearing his school uniform obviously having left school without changing before he got here.

Ageha was in the same state but he was a little…beaten up. "I can't believe my sister beat me up last night over getting home late, and I was sick as well!" Ageha finished shouting "Why'd we get a nose bleed last night Amamiya?"

"Your power awoke last night because of the atmosphere in Psyren that you were introduced to. It holds something that causes the natural limiters of your body to be broken, you were infected with it and now you too can use this power." Amamiya explained to Ageha and the others.

Asaga seemed a little interested but was surprised when he saw Matsuri "Yakumo Matsuri?" Asaaga questioned pointing at Matsuri. "Don't tell me that biker was her?" Asaga said not quite believing what he was seeing.

"Apparently." Ichigo dully answered Asaga's question.

By now everyone was looking at Matsuri whom was sitting in a chair behind a desk spinning around to face the others. "My, this room seems rather crowded" Matsuri said standing up "All this junk is in my way." Suddenly chairs and tables were flying through the air to a corner of the room, although it seemed that Matsuri had no regard for whether or not someone was in the way of a piece of furniture as it flew through the air hitting both Asaga and Ageha giving them a few new light bruises. Amamiya and Ichigo escaped the flying furniture through their own methods; Amamiya applied a small use of rise while Ichigo used his bringer light to avoid the flying furniture.

_"It's that strange power again."_ Asaga thought to himself surprised and curious at the same time.

"Alrighty, gather 'round, let's have a chat about Psyren" Matsuri said having finally finished throwing away all the furniture and had now retrieved four fold up chairs from the mess she created.

"Hold on," Ichigo said holding his and up "how can we talk about Psyren to you? It'd go against the rules, wouldn't it?"

"Normally yes, but I'm a former drifter so in other words I've already completed the game set out by Nemesis Q, and by that I mean that my point score has dropped to zero" Matsuri said answering Ichigo's confusion. "I was a drifter way before you guys and I've been back and forth from that wasteland more times than I could be bothered to count"

"You beat it?" Ageha said sounding as though he didn't quite believe Matsuri.

"Sure have" Matsuri replied smiling.

"So what is that place? What is Psyren?" Ageha asked rapidly not giving Matsuri a chance to answer them individually.

"Woah, woah, just listen, all the answers are on the back of your cards" Matsuri said.

"They are?" Ageha said incredulously "There wasn't anything there before when I looked"

"Just take them out you two" Amamiya said stepping into the conversation. "Truth is, it takes a little more than just looking at the back of the card. There's a little trick to it. All you have to do is hold the card in front of your forehead.

"Um, ok then" Asaga said unsure placing the card in front of his forehead revealing the number forty-eight in the top left corner of the card and a list of rules in dot points outling the various rules of the game that you mustn't step over the boundary of. "Forty-eight…you mean this is the value of what's left on our cards?"

"That's the secret…hey Ichigo why haven't you checked your card yet?" Matsuri said noticing that Ichigo had yet to retrieve the card from his jacket pocket.

"I've already seen it," Ichigo replied, "I stumbled across it in my time in Psyren by accident"

"I see…well then, Asaga, Ageha, only the people who are able to find this information manage to survive the first round…" Matsuri said all seriousness in her voice.

"What? If everyone had known this from the start, then…" Asaga said, slight traces of anger and despair in his voice.

"…Now read the last line. It says 'good luck to all trying to change the future'" Matsur said reading a sentence aloud.

"No fucking way! How can that be the future? What happened?" Ageha yelled demanding answers. "Leap through time? It doesn't even seem possible to begin with and even if it was why did Japan end up a waste land?"

"Other than you asking the same question twice, it didn't happen to just Japan as far as I'm aware, because if it was there would have surely been someone trying to claim the land for themselves. If you do manage to figure out what happened you wouldn't save only Japan but the world" Matsuri answered Ageha's burst of questions.

_"Again?"_ Ichigo thought not quite believing the possibility that even with Aizen gone that the world would still be so far under even with a powerful godlike man locked away for what should seem like eternity.

"I'm still trying to find out what happened to the world even though I can't go back." Matsuri said a serious look on her face. "That's why it's now up to you guy's to figure that out. Why Japan and possibly the world is nothing but ruins, I don't know. When does it happen? What causes it to happen? We have to find answers to these questions." Matsuri said guiding them to the building rooftop. Striding out onto the platform and looking over the edge Matsuri continued where she left off. "It was over two years ago that I first travelled to Psyren. Back then the urban myth about Psyren didn't even exist. I travelled back and forth many times trying to unravel the mysteries of Psyren, a big one being those Tavoo."

"What…are they exactly?" Ichigo asked seemingly rather interested in these Tavoo that had become apart of the conversation.

"Yeah, I'd like to know that as well." Asaga said.

"No clue," Matsuri answered "but I'm sure that the worlds decay and those monsters must be connected somehow. I've come across many Tavoo and judging from experience I'd have to say that something or someone made them. The source of Tavoo is out there somewhere, it could be a person, a place or even some other dimension."

"I'd have to say that'd be stretching it a little" Ichigo said voicing his opinion about Matsuri's last theory "although about them being created, I at least agree with that, those red cores that were implanted in them were by no means natural from the looks of it and the way they moved across the land seemed as though they were just the scouts, so…how powerful do they really get?"

"At the moment…far too much for you to handle, the others though…" Matsuri said looking at Asaga and Ageha "they have a bit to go before they're ready to fight any of them at all single handedly"

"…I've decided to work together with Matsuri to unravel the mysteries of Psyren. We must find out the source of the worlds destruction" Amamiya spoke up trying to tell the others that it was a good idea to join her and Matsuri to not only survive their travels to Psyren but to figure out the problems that caused the disaster. "Right sensei?" Amamiya said turning to Matsuri.

"There's something you still haven't told us," Asaga said making Matsuri raise her eyebrow "that nosebleed we got after leaving Psyren what happened? Both Ageha and I got it, I'm not sure about Ichigo but why?"

"Oh I must've forgotten to mention last night that you got infected with something in the Psyren atmosphere," Matsuri said waving it off as something that wasn't important "all it did was activate your power, you can all use that power now. You got the nosebleed so there shouldn't be any other problems."

"Is it called PSI by any chance?" Ichigo asked offhandedly.

"Bingo. It's actually a power that anyone could have access to but it lies dormant within most of people. There are a few who are able to use it from birth, but they tend to keep under the radar" Matsuri said a little surprised that Ichigo already knew what it was called.

Holding her palm out in the direction of a water tank on the roof top Matsuri caused the entire tank to be crushed by an invisible force causing water to come gushing out of it in large tears that had appeared under the strain of the force applied to it. It was quite impressive really; Ichigo wondered just how powerful she really was since that it looked like that was almost no strain to perform at all.

"The something in the Psyren atmosphere that I talked about, it unlocks the regularly dormant section of the brain that controls PSI." Matsuri explained, the water tank now having fully ruptured leaving a gaping hole in the side of it. "It is your greatest weapon against the Tavoo…except for Ichigo. Today you are going to start learning how to use it. Become as strong as you can before your next battle in Psyren."

"Matsuri, why do you keep saying that Ichigo has a better chance of survival than us, isn't that extremely high speed he showed us last night the same as PSI? Wouldn't that have made him a natural PSI user?" Asaga asked wondering what kind of capabilities Ichigo possessed.

"No Ichigo is a special case among humans and has a power that is limited to few. That ability though already pushes the body past it's limits, but if he learns to use both powers effectively and to their full potential he shouldn't have much more to worry about, isn't that right Ichigo, you wouldn't perhaps be by any chance in a club of sorts with people like you? I heard your type usually band together." Matsuri said looking at Ichigo with interest.

"Maybe." Ichigo said implying that he was in a group of fullbringers. "But for the moment I'd like to learn as much as I can today of this PSI stuff so I can finish my other training by the end of the week if possible. By the sounds of things I'll need to finish soon and get strong fast."


	5. Welcome, my friend, to your nightmare

(Four days later)

"Not good enough, again Ichigo" Ginjou commanded Ichigo as Ichigo struggled to get back to his feet having been severely injured by Ginjou's fullbring.

Right now Ichigo tried to desperately see what was in front of him, but he couldn't, that bastard Ginjou had destroyed his eyes because he couldn't react in time, granted he did feel strangely faster than he should be, but it wasn't enough. Ginjou had simply stated that it was all part of his now modified training to accelerate his fullbring growth and had proceeded without care to slash Ichigo to pieces as he stood almost completely defenseless trying to sort out the sound in the background and determine Ginjou's location.

"Yeah well I'd be doing a lot better if you hadn't cut my eyes!" Ichigo tried yelling only to start coughing and sputtering blood from his mouth by the time he finished. _"Great he not only cut through my ribs but nicked my lungs as well."_

Ichigo stood up stumbling a little unable to see that he only had two lives left on his health meter before game over. Ichigo charged almost completely sure that Ginjou's voice came from right ahead. Swinging his reiatsu blade forward Ichigo struck out and was met with the sound resistance of an object in front of him clearly being Ginjou's blade. If Ichigo could see Ginjou now he would just see him almost lazily holding his blade up to block Ichigo's attack because of just how uncoordinated it was due to Ichigo's blindness.

"I can still hear and sense you Ginjou" Ichigo said to Ginjou who in turn raised an eyebrow before using bringer light to give him a little extra strength to launch Ichigo into the air winding him slightly.

"You say you can still hear me even though I'm not being all that loud, impressive, but…do you really think that sound and presence alone is enough to defeat me Ichigo" Ginjou said watching Ichigo regain his balance in mid air using his bringer light to flip around from his upside down position and land on his feet panting heavily. The instant Ichigo righted himself a blade was coming out of the right side of his chest and he struggled to move his right arm thanks to the blade severing a good portion of the muscles. "I thought you said you could sense me Ichigo, or is that all just because you're too slow to react. If you really want to protect all your friends from all the bad things in the world you're gonna have to step up your game…or maybe I should just leave you here to die and take care of your other friends as well." Ginjou said egging Ichigo on trying to get a reaction out of him to make him push on. Ichigo after all was at the very edge of breaking the boundary that would enable him to harness his fullbring to it's full potential.

"You stay away from them." Ichigo demanded, on his knees feebly grabbing at the sword in his chest with his left arm trying to pull it out but to no avail as it remained lodged in his chest. Feeling hopeless in this moment of time Ichigo began to see very faint outlines of blue energy that seemed to be taking shape as Ginjou's figure. Unable to do anything even with the tiny ray of hope that he'd been given Ichigo continued to struggle

"I don't think I will, let's see then…well the healer's here so I'll begin with her first and go nice and slow." Ginjou said dragging the last part out hoping to get Ichigo to put more effort into pulling the blade out of his chest as well as clearing the final stages of his fullbring completion in one full sweep. His intentions however were masked behind a poorly made expression on his face, he was never one for acting, although his wish was granted as a sudden burst of reiatsu was given off by Ichigo as he stood to his feet looking even more determined than before with…an insane grin on his face.

"Ahh…" Ichigo sighed as he rolled his shoulders and cracked the joints in his arms and neck. "You really know how to piss off kingy, he he hahaha, yeah! I'm back! Oh and would you look at that," not-Ichigo said pulling Ginjou's blade out of his chest with his right arm, the very arm that was supposed to have been rendered immobile "the fullbring is completing itself, and now I just need something to release all my pent up energy on…namely being you." not-Ichigo said in all seriousness losing his grin and narrowing his eyes even if he still couldn't see yet.

Ginjou watched in horror as his blade was easily retrieved by Ichigo's arm and wrenched from the flesh it was buried in. How was this possible? Ichigo shouldn't be able to move that arm, especially since all the muscle tissue had been sliced to pieces, after pulling the blade out he'd understand, but with the blade? It just didn't seem possible, even for a fullbringer…but this wasn't Ichigo, it couldn't be.

The next thing Ginjou saw that confused him the most was a white liquid slowly escaping from the grievous wound in Ichigo and continued to spread until it overlapped with the untouched skin on Ichigo's body solidifying into a state of a gel like substance becoming not only the substance that was healing the wound but an armor that slowly began to spread over the skin in lines that trailed down his arm to the object of affinity that Ichigo's hand held, the substitute badge.

"Even if that new power Ichigo has managed to obtain brought me back out from the depths of his mind, I think I still need an object to target and suppress the power outburst" not-Ichigo continued as he began to walk forwards breaking into a run after only a few steps "don't die on me now, kingy needs this power so I can teach him stuff even if hollow techniques are out of range until he dies now." not-Ichigo declared before whispering something inaudible to Ginjou remembering an event that took place not too long ago at a café with an insane pianist and a few new companions king had manged to gain, "Rise."

* * *

FLASH BACK

"Alright let's go over this again…" Matsuri said beginning a recap of Psyren, "the game begins when you get a call from Nemesis Q, no matter where you are you have to answer that phone call when you get it unless you want to be bleeding from your eardrums and go deaf. All players are sent nearby the starting point. Once most of the players assemble or people have finally finished entering Psyren and are near the starting point the phone will begin to ring, you'll get instructions to find the gate and an image will flash in your head of what the finish looks like. By reaching the gate you clear the round and points are deducted from your card, although every time is by a different amount, this time you only lost two points next time it'll probably be different. Tour goal is simple, survive all the rounds until your point score reaches zero."

"Does that mean Nemesis Q is trying to change the future too? By using the calling cards? And why the hell are we being forced to do this?" Ageha asked Matsuri restraining himself from speaking louder to avoid attracting the attention of the rest of the café.

"Who knows, maybe he happens to like playing games? Or may-" Matsuri was about to continue when Ichigo interrupted.

"She, not he, it's a woman in charge of the game, you know the phone lady, that wasn't a machine talking to you when you called for the first time and did the examination." Ichigo said causing the others to wonder if what he said was true or not. Was Nemesis Q a woman?

"Well in any case, I think you'll have to ask Q directly if you wan to find out." Matsuri finished off her sentence where she had been cut off. "All I can say for now is that you'll find out eventually and that I may have a slight clue as to what Q is after although I won't say now because I can't quite tell and it may be wrong. This game has been slowly moving east over the years changing location each time, basically you are moving to future east Japan. Enough about Psyren for now, let's get started on PSI, PSI is the brains latent ability…but it is also dangerous and humanity forgot how to use this power long ago thanks to evolutionary traits that put a limiter on the brains capability to use this power."

"But what about us? You said we had power now?"Ageha said clearly interested in where this conversation was going whether or not he completely understood it all, it was a lot to take in all at once even if he had known about Psyren for over a day now.

"That's correct, although you're all still like babies when it comes to using it since you've never experienced or used this power consciously if you have already used some abilities that is." Matsuri answered. "PSI is the power of ones thoughts released when all the cells in a persons brain fire at full activity. Normally about ninety percent of the average human brain cells are inactive in order to avoid taxing your mind. PSI is dangerous because it overtaxes the brain and can cause irreparable damage. Psyren's atmosphere however removed your natural limiter and allowed you to now use PSI. PSI users are able to momentarily focus on their physical abilities and push them past their limits, now this can also cause damage to your body in it's own rights because if you push your body too far too fast…"

"It'll break down" Ichigo finished for Matsuri when she paused to see if they were following and knew what she meant.

"Exactly!" Matsuri said saying Ichigo was correct in his assumption. "Even though you can use PSI to strengthen ones body it is not uncommon for someone to be unable to keep up with the boost to their other physical attributes and cause themselves serious bodily harm through muscle tear, torn ligaments, both of which can prevent you from moving a part of your body and last of all breaking bones, the stress might be simply too much for your skeleton and it'll cause you a lot of pain and break down. Sensible ones usually stop right after they feel even a little bit of pain but the others push even further and destroy themselves, it's good to know your limits even if they are a problem needing to be removed, you just need to train to get stronger. Now onto another part of this conversation of PSI, PSI is divided into three main sections, all of which contain a variety of abilities, these three parts are called 'rise', which is a boost to your physical attributes, 'burst' which allows you to use PSI as energy or rendering waves to create something like an attack that consists of pyro kinesis or telekinesis, and 'trance' which allows you to use things like telepathy and allows you to influence someone's mind."

_"That sounds freakishly close to what Aizen and Tsukishima's abilities are"_ Ichigo thought shuddering a bit knowing first hand the capabilities of screwing with ones mind had having seen someone under their influence before.

"However first of all you're going to learn to use burst so you can learn to use your PSI more efficiently before you begin with rise," Matsuri said pushing a coffee cup in front of Amamiya and putting some cream into the coffee that was on the side plate allowing the cream to begin to dissolve "for instance at the moment telekinesis."

Amamiya then looked at the cream in the coffee cup as it begun to move and from the shape of a pentagram and various other symbols, preventing the cream from mixing with the coffee.

FLASH BACK END

* * *

Not-Ichigo held his arm back building up energy before swinging overhead with all his might his black blade colliding with Ginjou's hand that was stuck out in defense with reiatsu covering it better improving his chances of still having a hand after the ordeal was over. A massive explosion occurred only a split second after the two collided engulfing both of them, Ichigo's consciousness returning to the world only just before either of them collided, but he didn't care how he got there at the moment, because he already knew 'he' was back, he'd known from the moment his left eye bled back in Psyren, but it wasn't red blood he saw, no, it was black. Besides, it was always his left eye that went first and that's how he knew.

Ichigo roared as he applied more pressure before his body finally gave in and collapsed because his body could go no further and he had exhausted his reiatsu supply. However Ichigo's fullbring was still in effect and had visibly changed from the black reiatsu shihakusho he wore to a black skintight suit covered in a white armor like substance.

Looking up at Ginjo he could now see him thanks to the healing abilities of the hollow reiatsu and his unconscious healing with his PSI. Ginjo's right arm had its sleeve completely burnt off as well as some scorch marks elsewhere on his clothing thanks to the power output. The skin on his arm was no better as there was a massive gash on his hand from the force applied by the blade and red burns marks, it had turned black as well in spots where it had been scorched more intensely.

"I didn't think you had it in you to attack me like that…or was that not really you?" Ginjou said to Ichigo as the dust kicked up from the attack dissipated around them both.

"The last part was me, at least from the point where I struck you with my blade." Ichigo panted. "So…so you're not going to kill them then are you? You tricked me!"

"Yes I did trick you, and with my bad acting skills I thought that you wouldn't believe me for a moment but having the healer here really made you believe it, you suck at sarcasm you know that." Ginjou said earning a frown from Ichigo. "In the end you completed your fullbring even if it's final form itself is a little off being complete, but that's nothing that can't be fixed through a little training. So Ichigo, welcome to Xcution."

* * *

(Two days later)

"Alright Ichigo, give me another set of a hundred and we'll be done" Ginjou said as he sat down in a chair, right arm resting on a table, drinking a shot that he had Yukio send him.

"No…way," Ichigo gasped out "I barely…completed the last one" Ichigo whined lying on his back soaked in sweat.

"Relax, I was only joking" Ginjou said making Ichigo's eyebrow twitch in annoyance.

"Then why did you sound as though you wanted me to go again? You're tone or facial expression didn't change at all!" Ichigo said sitting up now having recovered.

"Good recovery time." Ginjou said noting how quickly Ichigo was able to move around again, he'd need it to use his fullbring effectively since not only was it a clad-type fullbring but it was also one that was designed for battle. "You should try your fullbring out again, it should finally be complete thanks to the endurance training you've been doing."

"Hmm, alright then." Ichigo said blinking at how the conversation turned somewhere else so fast, or maybe he was just tired, oh well. Ichigo pulled out his substitute badge and began to activate his fullbring.

A small vortex of wind accompanied the transformation obscuring Gingo's view of what was happening so he wasn't able to see a black layer of reiatsu envelope most of Ichigo's body only leaving the base of his neck and upward left out in the open. After that a white gel like substance instantly burst out of the substitute badge and cover parts of Ichigo's body acting like armor to at an extra layer of protection over Ichigo's now reiatsu enforced skin.

After the wind died down it revealed Ichigo in his new fullbring form to Ginjou whou seemed quite impressed with the new fullbring Ichigo had gained. Looking at the badge in his hand Ichigo noticed that no blade had come out so he shifted his grip a little and a blade and handle shot out of either end providing his main weapon for his fullbring, a black cross marking had spread over both sides over the badge covering the skull and blank side.

"Yukio," Ginjou called out into the air "something for Ichigo to test his new power out on."

As soon as that was said pixelated images came into existence before rendering themselves into that of some low level hollows. Ichigo just looked at all of them before blurring out of existence and slashing through the closest hollow cleaving it in half in less than a second, his speed was at least at that of his bankai's when he first achieved it in Sokyoku hill, if not only a tad slower.

Making quick work of the remaining hollows Ichigo came to a stand still to admire his new power and noticed the sheath that had been created by his fullbring and sheathed the sword in it, the blade fitting perfectly into place.

"Well Ichigo it would seem that your training has been completed for completing your fullbring, you can go home now and do whatever you want, come check in sometimes for company if you want to. Oh and if you're worried about how much time has really passed it's only been about six days so don't worry about all the weeks you've spent in here, Yukio's fullbring 'All invaders must die' allows him to alter the environment around us as I'm sure you're already aware from his little display earlier. So that means he can also alter the amount of time that passes in here, however your body will still age at the same rate as though it were on the outside, so you're only six days older." Ginjou explained to Ichigo telling him not to worry about any events he may have thought he missed. "You can also come here to train because the power output you make here is all contained within this pocket dimension, it's also because he can change the amount of gravity, temperature, etc, you get it." Ginjou said getting a nod from Ichigo. "Good then!" Ginjou gave Ichigo a slap on the back. "Go rest a bit at home and come round sometime and I'll treat you to a drink."

"But I'm underage." Ichigo said blankly to Ginjou not knowing if he was talking to a still sane person. He seemed normal enough during training.

"No one needs to know that…I'm sure your father wouldn't mind" Ginjou said making Ichigo's eyes widen in realisation. His father wouldn't let him live it down and would probably try and get him to get a girlfriend while at it.

"Yukio, I'd like to leave now." Ichigo said stepping back from Ginjou.

"Sure, hold on a sec." Yukio's voice rang out in the barren landscape from a holographic screen in the sky.

"Hey, come on, just a little drink, or…or some ramen instead." Ginjou practically begged.

"Don't listen to him he does it to everyone. Alright there you go." Yukio said to Ichigo dematerialising him and bringing him out of his fullbring.

Appearing through a pixelated field of black Ichigo looked at Yukio before silently thanking him for his help and said goodbye to all the Xcution members present before leaving through the door at the front of the conjoined apartments.

Stepping out of the door and closing it behind him Ichigo stretched his arms and legs a little to get rid of all the soreness in his body and set off to head home by jumping from the balcony and using bringer light to cushion his fall.

A few minutes into the walk home and passing through the streets he could see Uryuu flying through the air on his routine hollow extermination. Uryuu didn't often kill hollows anymore; he only did it when a request from Urahara came in. Deciding to play a little trick and possibly freak out Uryuu Ichigo launched into the air and landed on a power line just behind Uryuu making sure he applied just enough force to make the cables bend and flex creating a noise to attract Uryuu's attention.

Stopping still Uryuu turned around to find Ichigo standing in his face making him scream like a little girl and fall backwards onto the telephone poll standing behind him. Ichigo just stood there casually checking his nails to see if any dirt was under them.

Opening and closing his mouth repeatedly Uryuu finally spoke "How?"

"Hm," Ichigo said in a way sure to annoy Uryuu "what was that?" Ichigo said rhetorically. "Oh, you mean this?" Ichigo said pointing to his feet innocently as he remained standing upright on the power line "I don't know, I suddenly decided to go for a walk and found myself here, how will I ever get down?" Ichigo said holding both of his hands to his face trying to look stupid.

Uryuu just growled in response before saying the same thing as before but with a little more anger in his voice, Ichigo's act clearly working on him, "How?"

"A magical fairy taught me." Ichigo said blankly looking at Uryuu with all seriousness in his voice before he burst out in laughter. "Just kidding, but man you should see your face." Ichigo continued to laugh causing a slight smile to come to Uryuu's face. When Ichigo noticed he reverted to his regular scowl and looked at Uryuu. "What's with the smile four-eyes, is someone like yourself happy that I have powers again."

Seemingly not bothered in the slightest by Ichigo's jab Uryuu replied. "You seemed to be really depressed when you lost your powers, it's just good to see my rival back in shape so we can compete again."

"What for? To see you on your ass? Sure!" Ichigo said with a smug grin before truthfully answering Uryuu's earlier question, "These powers are like Orihime and Chad's, it's called fullbring where one uses an object of affinity to boost their strength and gain some special capabilities."

"I see…" was all Ichigo manged to hear coming from Uryuu's mouth before a low incessant ringing made it to Ichigo's ears. "What's that noise Kurosaki?" Uryuu said finally standing back up and looking around.

Ichigo's eyes widened in realisation, Uryuu had answered the phone examination as well!

"Uryuu, hey Uryuu look at me," Ichigo said grabbing Uryuu's shoulders and turning him to face himself "It's your phone ringing answer it…I know it's not your ringtone." Ichigo said when confusion showed on Uryuu's face. "Just put your phone up to your ear, it's got to do with Psyren, you remember that right, I'll answer you're questions when you get there, for now just answer the phone."

"You better answer them Kurosaki." Uryuu said pulling his cell phone out of his pocket and putting up to his ear promptly vanishing in a small glow of white.

"Well I guess I should join him then." Ichigo said to himself pulling out his own cell phone and putting up to his ear ready to go to Psyren for his second time. Ichigo then glowed a little before he disappeared just like Uryuu had and landed in Psyren.

"Uryuu!" Ichigo called out into the wasteland that was now before his eyes.

Ichigo was currently standing atop a collapsed building on one of the many dozens of shards of glass that was on it's surface, he was lucky he remembered his shoes.

"Where are we Kurosaki?" Uryuu's voice came from behind Ichigo, a blue trail of reiatsu dissolving from the path he created with his hirenkyaku.

"Uryuu, welcome…to the future!" Ichigo said raising his arms to his sides presenting to Uryuu the truth of the new world before him.

* * *

Ideas for possible PSI powers would be appreciated. I've got a few in mind but I wanna see what you come up with, just to see if it's interesting, and I'll think about adding it in somewhere


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry about the slow update, I started watching some anime series called Fate Stay/Night (Was Ok) and Fate Zero (Way better), saw some others as well although not as notable E.g. Freezing, Sekirei. During this time I didn't really feel as though what I was doing with the story but in the end I just decided to go with whatever came to mind. So here you go, new chapter number six.

* * *

"What do you mean Kurosaki? If this were the future I don't think you would have been acting like you have been just now." Uryuu said still skeptical about the world before him unsure as to whether or not a powerful illusion had been cast before his eyes.

"That was a short victory dance of how I get to kick your ass again." Ichigo said to Uryuu plainly.

Uryuu and Ichigo had always tried to best one another in their abilities but that all ended when Ichigo lost his powers due to the fact of using the final gestuga tenshou. Now that his abilities were back they were probably going to be at each others necks again like a pack of wolves fighting over a lump of meat, not very constructive but it was something to do nonetheless, after all they now both excelled in their academic curriculum and were almost matched however Uryuu took the lead in that aspect.

"This really is the future Uryuu and we're being given a chance to save it. How? I don't know, I haven't really thought that far yet." Ichigo said scratching the back of his head sheepishly.

"Just leave it up to you to forget all the details and barge in head first." Uryuu sighed rubbing his forehead in mild annoyance. "Alright where do we go from here?"

"I dunno, a payphone should be nearby I guess…" Ichigo trailed off after seeing Ageha appear on another collapsed building not too far away. "Over there for now," Ichigo pointed to Ageha and what appeared to be Asaga hanging on for dear life…well not quite, he seemed to be fine climbing back up the edge of the building, "I met those guys last time, the short one's Ageha and the other is Asaga." Ichigo told Uryuu informing him of their names. "Don't worry about using your powers here either, they all have their own from coming here just once and so will you when we leave."

"Wait! What? Where do I get these abilities from?" Uryuu asked thinking that he had to go somewhere to attain these so-called special abilities.

"It'll happen in a few hours, you get a nose bleed, you feel like shit and can't really do much." Ichigo said casually as though an unexplained fever were the most normal of things in the world and you were told that you would get it just by being somewhere, it almost sounded like he was in quarantine. "Anyway enough chat, let's go to them and we'll find out if there are any others here." Ichigo said, and before Uryuu could so much as say a word Ichigo was jumping from the peak of one rubble hill to the next hands in pockets, a small green trail of light coming out of his feet.

"Showoff." Uryuu muttered to himself before he used hirenkyaku to catch up.

"So Ageha how was the special training." Ichigo said behind Ageha surprising him slightly.

When Ageha turned around to face Ichigo he just shuddered at the thought of the first introduction he was given to PSI training by Amamiya. Even though she wasn't violent and in no way did she harm him all of her threats seemed very real and freaked him out quite a bit, being left chained to a chair for all eternity wasn't a thing he'd like to experience.

"Oh it was fine, quite easy in fact." Ageha said with confidence trying to sound as though he picked it up really easily, although Ichigo knew better from his performance at the café. Out of the two Asaga, and Ageha it seemed Asaga was picking up on it the fastest.

"Riiight" Ichigo said in a tone that said 'I don't believe you'. "Well let's get going to find the phone, other people should be nearby and we should probably prevent them from killing themselves if at all possible." Ichigo said pointing a thumb over his shoulder at Uryuu who's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. "That's right I forgot to introduce you, Uryuu this is Ageha and Asaga."

"It's nice to meet you." Uryuu said trying to be as polite as possible although a master at reading facial expressions and vocal tones would be able to tell that he was slightly annoyed at the current predicament he found himself in. _"Since when could Kurosaki make friends so easily, ahh forget it, all the friends he makes are weirdoes anyway excluding me, I am simply a friendly rival, that is all."_ Uryuu thought to himself.

"Yeah, nice to meet you to." Asaga said being the only one to reply of the two, Ageha already having left with Ichigo to find the new Psyren drifters and Amamiya.

Uryuu sighed pushing up his glasses with his right index finger before turning in Ichigo's direction ready to take off. Just before he left he glanced over his shoulder to ask Asaga a question, "You'll have no problem keeping up with Kurosaki and myself now will you?"

"What do you mean by that?" Asaga questioned coming up beside Uryuu.

"The others have already made it quite some distance somehow and left us behind, what I'm asking you is how fast can you run?" Uryuu said answering Asaga's question and rewording his own.

"I'm not that fast, I'm more of a strong type." Asaga said plainly trying to guess at what Uryuu was hinting at.

"Just like Chad in that sense." Uryuu muttered to himself remembering the giants' strength far outweighed his own speed. "Well in that case, stand still, please do not throw up, and wait until the end of the trip for further instructions." Uryuu said moving a bit closer to Asaga before wrapping his fingers around Asaga's shoulder in a tight grip and kicking off with a burst of hirenkyaku more or less dragging Asaga through the air behind him as he went.

* * *

"Where are they?" Amamiya said to herself in a panicked tone, "They should be right here! Everyone else appeared in almost the exact same place this time!" Amamiya continued to talk to herself as she searched the room of people who were almost all dazedly looking around as though they thought that they were in some kind of dream.

"Hey Amamiya over here!" Ageha's voice called out.

Amamiya turned around as fast as she could and was relieved when she saw a hand waving in the crowd, the persons figure not quite as noticeable as the orange haired teen beside him or the two others behind them.

"Shut up Ageha, your too loud." Ichigo said rubbing the left side of his head having been the side to face the full brunt of Ageha's voice. Coming up to Amamiya he was slightly confused when he saw how happy she looked. Ichigo turned his head to the sides to see if the others were still beside him, they were to his relief but they were all quite a distance for him making him gain a slight tint of redness in his cheeks that were barely noticeable. Even he had to admit that she looked cute by his standards.

"Psst, Asaga." Ageha said covering his mouth with his hand in a way so that only Asaga could hear him while still looking at Ichigo and Amamiya.

"Yeah, I noticed, you were gonna ask if something was happening between them weren't you?" Asaga asked Ageha getting an affirmative nod. "Well I dunno right now but he's lucky to get someone as cute as her, but then again you could feel sorry for him for her mood swings and what not, they seem to be pretty random and frightening at worst."

"Yeah…you're not jealous are you?" Ageha said smirking a little at Asaga after being caught out for calling Amamiya cute.

"A little, you're the one who seems affected the most." Asaga replied before leaving Ageha to his own thoughts not letting him give a reply.

"So what happens now?" Uryuu spoke up gaining everyone's attention.

"We wait for the phone to ring," Ichigo said furrowing his eyebrows a little annoyed at having to say it again "didn't I already tell you that?"

"You did, but I find your knowledge less than credible when circumstances like this arise." Uryuu said smirking while pushing up his glasses again. "I just wanted to find out whether or not I could rely on you."

By this point Ichigo was growling a little angered by Uryuu's jab at his brashness when it came to fighting. At this point though Amamiya stepped in having recovered from seeing the others alive and ok, "It's true, at this point in time all we have to do is to wait for the…" Amamiya paused when the loud ringing of the payphone reached their ears "phone call, come on, let's go!" Amamiya said moving in the direction of the sound having to press through the crowd of people surrounding the pay phone before she could see it.

"It's ringing." Someone stated.

"But the cable at the base is snapped and frayed." another said.

Getting through the last row of people though seemed to be a problem at least until she saw Ageha forcibly push people out of the way and pick the phone up to his ear. After that, the woman's voice was in everyone's head and repeated the same thing at the first area Ichigo had attended.

"Those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair," a voice called out to everyone in their heads, "those seeking Psyren shall taste power and despair, those who reach Psyren shall be granted the world, there is only one exit in this game. Those seeking Psyren…those searching for the exit from this world…find the gate!" the womans voice finished off with a shout showing them a mental image of another pay phone.

Ichigo sighed at hearing the exact same thing he heard when the payphone was picked up last time. _"It's probably a recorded message of some sort. It sounded exactly the same as last time. She even said the same thing. Now to prove to everyone that they're not crazy and prevent themselves from going out to get themselves killed."_ Ichigo thought dragging a hand over his face coming to terms with the fact that he'd only just finished his training and wasn't at his peak. He felt like shit. This wasn't going to be easy.

"I assume that that image I saw in my head is the target payphone that we have to reach." Uryuu said to Ichigo standing by his side watching everyone slowly being filled with despair. More of a slight sadness at what possible dangers awaited them but despair was there nonetheless.

"Yeah." Ichigo replied plainly. Turning to find the rest of his small group that had miraculously survived their first round, except for Amamiya. "Come on. We've gotta convince all these nut jobs not to go out and get themselves killed."

"I suppose that makes sense and takes priority at the moment." Uryuu said pushing up his glasses.

* * *

Some time later Amamiya being the one at the current point in time with the most knowledge of Psyren had managed to gain everyone's attention and explain where they were was the future and that there was no prize. That fact brought down people far further than she had intended. If there was no prize, what was the point in being here? Most still didn't believe that they could die just by stepping outside and were formulating their own ideas of how they could get back home. The phone booth as they soon figured out was just across a relatively large expanse of sandy ground. It would be easy enough to just walk across to it and try out their calling cards to see if that fact was at least right.

Ichigo had an uneasy feeling when he saw the expanse of sand. Chances were according to his knowledge and experience, that there was something living in it, something big. But then again he could be wrong and so he simply shrugged off this feeling of dread when he thought about it and tried to convince himself that people weren't needlessly ending their lives because they thought they knew what they were doing.

"You said there was a map," a man spoke up, "I'd like to see this map before I go anywhere."

"That's Oboro Mochizuki." Someone said and almost instantly whispering broke out among the people gathered in the partially leveled building thinking that following this man might know what to do as all simple minded people did.

Ichigo looked at the people before him and dragged a hand over his face not quite believing what was happening before him. Was ninety percent of the world's population stupid or something? Seeing the people before him it was a definite possibility.

Uryuu was having similar thoughts about the situation at hand and thought that most of these people were hopeless and wouldn't listen to them no matter what.

Ageha being the one to have first thought that the others might want to see the map to check if they were telling the truth was already standing by the payphone his finger on top of the memo button. Motioning for Oboro to come over he pushed the button and his eyes widened at what he saw. The entire region around them was the danger zone. It extended all the way up the right side of the map save a small section in the upper right corner and almost half of the left. They themselves, the target and the path were all in the danger zone. How could this happen?

Seeing Ageha's shocked expression Uryuu asked what the problem was and much to everyone's surprise he wasn't all that affected by the news really. "It's just like Heuco Mundo all over again, eh Ichigo." Uryuu said recalling the time he had gone to the sandy desert with Ichigo and Chad to save Orihime.

"Close enough." Ichigo replied. _"But last time we didn't have twenty other people with us."_

"Well I can see you two having a lovely chat so I won't interfere, but seeing now that my eyes haven't deceived me and that is definitely the payphone over there in the distance I'll be going now. It can't be that hard to just walk along the ground and pick up a phone." Oboro said turning on his heel waving a hand over his shoulder heading for the stairs that would lead him to ground level.

"Yeah let's follow Oboro, these guys must be on something." Were the thoughts of many people that followed after Oboro as he departed.

"Well, so much for the explanation." Ichigo said scratching the back of his head. "I won't stop them, they probably just need an example." Ichigo paused when he caught some movement out of the corner of his eye and saw the only person apart from himself and his friends standing there watching the last man head down the stairs. "Who're you?" Ichigo pointed at the man.

"Hmm," said person turned his head towards Ichigo and he instantly knew that he was going to be a pain in the ass just by the way he was looking at him, "me? Well I'm Kabuto Kirisaki, and I didn't leave cause I ain't one to chase after men's asses." Kabuto said turning his eyes to Amamiya.

Yep, he was going down. Ichigo walked over and hit him over the head causing him to crumple to the ground clasping his head. "Watch it dumbass."

"What was that for?!" Kabuto whined in annoyance.

Ichigo just looked at him as though it should have been obvious at what he was doing it for. Scoffing Ichigo turned around and walked to a broken window that gave him a view of the outside and the path that the foolish people trekking out in the desert to find the payphone.

"Normally by now you'd be over there trying to save them all." Uryuu said walking up beside Ichigo to look out at the people as well waiting for the moment all hell broke loose.

"Yes, well sometimes you have to wait for someone to find out how foolish their acts are before you save them." Ichigo replied surprising the Quincy a little.

"Since when did you talk like that?" Uryuu pushed up his glasses not expecting an answer turned away not missing the new look in Ichigo's eyes. He looked hungry for battle, something he couldn't miss.

Ichigo wasn't known for not enjoying his fights, he reveled in them and sometimes it looked like he dragged things out for more enjoyment, but…he also didn't seem to be taking kindly to having to save the world again. Sure he'd do it but he seemed to be lacking that spark he always held with him no matter what. Perhaps it was because the people hadn't listened to him and his group of new friends and that he might not be able to save them.

However that mattered little at the moment. After all, if you cannot protect yourself from harm how will you protect others? Ichigo was probably underestimating himself at the moment but then again he might not, things will probably go to hell sooner or later.

Uryuu stopped in his tracks as he was approaching a concrete block to sit on and wait when he felt the sudden movement of the ground below him and subsequently heard an unearthly roar echo out from the direction of the people down below.

"What happened?" Ageha shouted to the others as he came to the front where all the people remaining were all now lined up next to the building edge wide eyed as they all looked at the monstrosity before them. Ageha didn't even hear a reply as he saw the single largest creature he'd ever seen coming out of the ground and diving upon the people before it managing to catch some in it's mouth.

"We can't do much against something like that." Ichigo sighed rubbing his temples trying to think of something to combat the creature in front of him.

"Says the almighty protector." Uryuu scoffed, "And here I thought that I'd already seen you kill bigger."

"Shut up, we don't even know if your arrow can pierce that thing." Ichigo returned.

"Maybe we should try then." Uryuu held his arm out straight and a glow enveloped his hand just before a bow like construct of reiatsu appeared in his hand. Reaching forward he pulled back an arrow and let it fly.

Everyone watched amazed, all except for Ichigo who had seen the bow a million times over. As the arrow neared it's target a surprising event occurred that no one expected to see. Someone's hand grasped over the arrow and snapped it like a twig causing it to disperse as they flew through the air and onto a building remnant. Although it didn't seem to come without consequence as the person opened the palm of their hand revealing it to be rather burnt.

"Not what I expected." Ichigo said to himself taking in the sight of the new person before them.


End file.
